By February 28, the 2025 major league baseball’s pre-season will be well underway. Most teams will have been practicing for two weeks by then. In and around Phoenix, 15 teams will be in the midst of providing locals with endless opportunities to see the biggest names as well as a multitude of unknown rookies hoping to make it to opening day.
Spring training baseball is hard to beat. With some luck you can get a seat right down near the field for a fraction of what the same view will cost once the official season begins. But, if baseball is not quite the escape you’re looking for, or you can’t get up to Phoenix, you might want to simply head outdoors on the 28th just after sunset. As the sky darkens, you might be able to spot five planets with unaided eyes and two more with binoculars.
Stargazing, like baseball, can certainly be an escape. Just like the sport, however, it can be a whole lot more. There’s an absolute artistry to America’s Pastime. So much of it is about singular talent, yet it very much takes a team effort to win. It’s slow enough to zero in on one player, to watch his every move and not lose sight of the rest of the field. Wonderfully, astronomy is exactly the same. Especially this month.
You see, at the end of every baseball season, the stars align for one team. All the pieces will come together, showing how the sum is greater than any single part. Well, right now, it’s still too early for those stars to align but, fortunately, it absolutely is the time for all of the planets to align.
Every planet is certainly a marvel unto itself, but sometimes we get to view them all at once. All eight planets inhabit a plane orbiting the Sun called the ecliptic. While the ecliptic is rather narrow, it is not completely flat. So, if you do go out on February 28, don’t expect our fellow solar system members to be in a straight line.
Begin your search in the southwest where Saturn can be spotted barely above the horizon. Then, heading eastward, Mercury, Neptune, Venus, Uranus, Jupiter and Mars will all be visible with the right magnification, most just by looking up.
Astronomers have long been able to determine the orbits of the planets. Much of the thanks for this goes to Johannes Kepler who, in the early 17th century, used observations and mathematics to describe not just how planets move, but also how to calculate their orbital speed relative to other planets and how long it takes each to orbit the sun. He demonstrated the order in the heavens. I think it’s that order that makes stargazing so comforting.
After you’ve captured the planets, admire some of the other great sights in the winter sky. Orion is to the south. The Big Dog, Canis Major, is below it and to the east. That’s where you’ll find Sirius, the sky’s brightest star.
There’s so much we can’t foresee in our daily lives. Often, the lack of predictability causes worry and anxiety. It brings me considerable solace to learn that a celestial event, with an attached date and time, will soon bring a minute or two of joy.
As spring approaches only two things are known. First, like clockwork, baseball is back. Secondly, the sky will continue to be a place where we can confidently plan to experience and immerse ourselves in moments of awe.
Neither gives us a perfect world, but I can’t imagine a world without them.