The first two weeks of March provide a great opportunity to see four bright planets with the naked eye in the early evening sky.
Low to the west burns Venus, which serves as a handy celestial landmark for viewing Mercurywhich will hover not far away. Mercury has its best evening view of 2025 for Northern Hemisphere observers during these two weeks. Venus will plunge dramatically toward its inferior conjunction on March 22, when it passes 8.4 degrees north of the sun. For a few days around this date, we can try to see Venus in strong twilight both just before sunrise and just after sunset. It zooms quickly into the morning sky and reaches an angular distance of 15 degrees from the sun at the end of the month.
In our schedule, remember that when measuring the angular distance between two celestial bodies, your clenched fist held at arm’s length measures about 10 degrees. Here we present a schedule below that gives some of the best viewing times for the planet, as well as showing you where to look to see them.
SPECIAL NOTE: Daylight saving time returns on the second Sunday in March. Except in the states of Arizona and Hawaii, and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, clocks shall be moved forward one hour at 2:00 am. The mnemonic is: “Spring forward, Fall back.”
The sun
The sun reaches March equinox at 05:01 Eastern Daylight Time March 20. This is when it crosses the equator on its way north. This moment marks the seasons: the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere and autumn in the southern.
Mercury
Mercury reaches its greatest elongation, 18 degrees east of the Sun, on the evening of March 8, appearing almost directly above the point on the western horizon where the sun set. At mid-twilight, about 45 minutes after sunset from latitude 40 degrees north, Mercury will be 9 degrees above the horizon almost due west, and 7 degrees down to the left of Venus. Mercury will set just after twilight ends on this date; its magnitude is -0.3. But Mercury fades very quickly afterwards. By March 12, it will have dimmed size +0.7 and just four days later the magnitude is +1.9, certainly too faint to be seen in strong twilight without optical aid.
On the evening of March 1, there will be an opportunity to see both Mercury and Venus near a lovely waxing crescent moon. Start looking half an hour after sunset, low on the western horizon for the slender crescent moon. About 10 degrees below and slightly to the right will be Mercury, shining at magnitude -1.0, while 7 degrees to the upper right of the moon will be Venus, dazzling as ever at magnitude -4.8. On March 24, Mercury arrives at inferior conjunction and enters the morning sky.
Venus
Venus begins March shining high above the western horizon at dusk. (That’s 23 degrees up half an hour after sunset for observers around 40 degrees north latitude.) But Venus plunges out of the evening sky over the next few weeks. By March 6th, Venus is 19 degrees high half an hour after sunset, and it is reduced to just 5 degrees by March 16th. Venus passes directly north of the Sun on March 20th and reaches inferior conjunction, passing the Sun’s position along the ecliptic, on March 22nd. And Venus is closest to the Sun after a few hours in the sky (8).
Nevertheless, remarkable views of Venus are available this month. Only near inferior conjunction is Venus’s large, thin crescent visible through even-support binoculars—and even possibly without the optical aid of a few exceptionally sharp observers. And only every 8 years, when Venus is far north of the Sun in inferior conjunction, can Northern Hemisphere observers see the planet at dawn and dusk on the same day. Venus begins to rise just before the sun (at a latitude of 40 degrees north) as early as March 12. On March 20, Venus is approximately 5 degrees above the horizon at both sunrise and sunset. By March 24, Venus is already 2 degrees above the eastern horizon half an hour before sunrise and on March 31 it will be 6 degrees high.
March
March resembles a golden orange point near the “Twin Stars” of Gemini, Pollux and Castor. Mars crosses the meridian approximately three hours after sunset on March 1 and one hour after sunset on March 31. It passes almost overhead for observers in the United States (except Alaska). This month, Mars fades sharply from magnitude -0.3 (brighter than Arcturus) to +0.4 (equal to Procyon), as the distance grows from 81 to 106 million miles (130 to 170 million km). Compare Mars with Betelgeuse. Which is redder? Only a fairly large telescope with good optics on a good night is likely to show a lot of detail on Mars.
Jupiter
Jupiter wanders past Aldebaran and the Hyades in March, appearing more than 2/3 of the way up in the southern sky at dusk on March 1 and still halfway up in the west at dusk on March 31. This giant world dims from magnitude -2.3 to -2.1 during this month, and its apparent diameter decreases by about 8%. On the evening of March 5, as darkness falls, notice that the Moon sits about 8 degrees to the upper right of Jupiter.
Saturn
Saturn transits along with the Sun on March 12, and remains lost in the sunrise’s glare for the rest of the month. On March 23, its famous rings will face Earth for the first time since 2009, so when it appears in the morning sky next month, it will appear ringless through most telescopes.
