A Once-in-a-Lifetime Planetary Alignment Is Coming in 2026, Here’s Exactly When
The Daily Galaxy••science
Key Points:
- A rare exosyzygy, where two exoplanets align with their host star as seen from Earth, is predicted to occur in 2026, marking one of the few known instances of this extra-solar triple alignment.
- This phenomenon, previously observed only once in 2010 and identified retrospectively, offers valuable scientific insights into planetary orbits and gravitational interactions but is expected to go unobserved due to the lack of allocated telescope time.
- The competitive and inflexible scheduling of telescope observations means no current mission has been assigned to monitor the 2026 event, highlighting systemic challenges in capturing rare astronomical phenomena in real time.
- Missing this observation opportunity limits the ability to collect transit timing variation data crucial for refining models of planetary dynamics
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