Planetary alignments aren’t rare, but 6 visible planets are. Here's how to see it. Six planets will be visible in the January night sky, but planetary alignments aren't anything special.

The stars aren't necessarily aligning tonight, but the planets will. To be exact, what's called a "planetary parade" will be occurring in the skies this evening, and into February.

This happened about 4½ billion years ago. Then the planets began to emerge, as the billions of particles of gas and dust left over from the Sun’s formation became a flattened disk.

Seven planets in a line is known to be the rarest of them all. For best viewing chances, look to the sky as soon as the sun sets. Which, is around 6:24 p.m. on Friday in Greenville, SC.

Science is driven by our desire to understand things. In some cases, where it requires significant effort and investment to ...