KIDS TRIVIA

Detailed explanation-1: -What Planets Are Visible By the Naked Eye? The first step to identifying planets is to know which planets are possible to see without a telescope. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are the five brightest planets in our night sky and, therefore, observable by most people.

Detailed explanation-2: -Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun, and the second largest, after Jupiter. It is one of the five planets visible from Earth using only the naked-eye (the others are Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter).

Detailed explanation-3: -Because Mercury is so close to the Sun, it is hard to directly observe from Earth except during dawn or twilight when the Sun’s brightness doesn’t outshine little Mercury. However, 13 times each century, observers on Earth can watch Mercury pass across the face of the Sun, an event called a transit.

Detailed explanation-4: -Although Mercury’s orbit has the highest eccentricity of all planets (0.21), its proximity to our star never takes it more than 28.3° away. It is hard to see because it is never far enough away from the Sun to be seen in a dark sky, i.e. it is only ever visible in the brighter skies of dawn and dusk.