Stunning 'parade of planets' image shows 6 worlds aligned over Earth

A rare and stunning photo recently captured a "parade of planets," in which six planets in our solar system appeared together in the predawn sky.

The image shows Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in alignment. Mars and Saturn are clearly visible near a crescent moon, while the positions of the remaining planets, which were too distant to be seen with the naked eye, were revealed by two composite long exposures. 

Astrophotographer Josh Dury captured the planetary parade on June 1 in the early hours of the morning from The Mendip Hills — a range of limestone hills in the county of Somerset in the U.K. on June 1. 

The annotated image shows Mars and Saturn clearly visible near a crescent moon, while the positions of the remaining planets (too distant to be seen with the naked eye but faintly visible in the image) were revealed by two composite long exposures.

"I thought no better than to climb Crooks Peak at the unearthly hour of 2am," Dury told Live Science via email. "As time passed, it was a really special experience. Being able to see one planet after another rising and being present in my images was fantastic and really encapsulated a sense of perspective of our place within the solar system, let alone the universe."

Related: Have all 8 planets ever aligned?

Planetary conjunctions occur when two or more planets appear to be close together in the sky. Of course, this is only from our perspective of the cosmos on Earth — in reality the planets remain extremely far apart.