Planetary conjunctions in 2026
- 13 conjunctions occur between the five naked-eye planets in 2026.
- 6 of them are close pairings - under 1° apart in ecliptic latitude.
- Same longitude does not mean same place in the sky: the latitude gap decides whether it is worth looking up.
Conjunctions between the naked-eye planets in 2026 (UTC)
| Date | Time (UTC) | Pair | At | Separation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 8 | 02:42 | Venus - Mars | 18°09' Capricorn | 0.17° |
| Jan 18 | 07:41 | Mercury - Mars | 26°03' Capricorn | 0.96° |
| Jan 29 | 10:20 | Mercury - Venus | 14°57' Aquarius | 0.69° |
| Feb 28 | 05:34 | Mercury - Venus | 22°15' Pisces | 4.54° |
| Mar 8 | 13:35 | Venus - Saturn | 2°38' Aries | 0.91° |
| Mar 15 | 08:09 | Mercury - Mars | 10°02' Pisces | 3.42° |
| Apr 19 | 22:39 | Mars - Saturn | 7°52' Aries | 1.19° |
| Apr 20 | 11:20 | Mercury - Saturn | 7°55' Aries | 0.46° |
| Apr 20 | 21:44 | Mercury - Mars | 8°36' Aries | 1.65° |
| Jun 9 | 19:58 | Venus - Jupiter | 25°47' Cancer | 1.61° |
| Aug 15 | 11:23 | Mercury - Jupiter | 10°09' Leo | 0.55° |
| Oct 7 | 00:05 | Mercury - Venus | 8°13' Scorpio | 5.05° |
| Nov 16 | 06:22 | Mars - Jupiter | 25°53' Leo | 1.20° |
Longitude conjunction versus a close approach
A conjunction here means the two planets share the same ecliptic longitude as seen from Earth. That is a clean, computable definition, but it says nothing about the second coordinate: the planets can match in longitude while sitting several degrees apart in ecliptic latitude, which on the sky is many Moon-widths. The separation column is that gap.
Anything under about 1° is a genuine close pairing - the two will look like a tight double to the naked eye and fit in a single telescope field. A separation of 4° or 5° still counts as a conjunction by the longitude definition, but the pair simply reads as two bright objects in the same region of sky.
Why these five
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are the planets visible without optical aid, so their conjunctions are the ones anyone can check against the table by going outside. Uranus and Neptune are excluded here: their conjunctions are computable but not observable unaided, and Uranus sits at the naked-eye limit only under exceptional skies.
Conjunctions involving Mercury and Venus also carry a practical caveat. Both stay near the Sun from Earth's viewpoint, so a conjunction can be geometrically exact while both planets are lost in twilight or below the horizon at the listed instant.