Question

While all of the inner Solar System planets are visible to the naked eye, not all of the outer Solar System planets are. For the faint ones, you will need binoculars or a telescope. Order these outer Solar System planets by the apparent brightness you expect them to have in Earth’s night sky, from faintest to brightest. You may assume they are all at opposition (when they are closest to Earth) at the time you are observing them.

Answer 1

The planets in outer Solar System from faintest to brightest are as follows:

• Neptune (+7.67)
• Uranus (+5.38)
• Saturn (-0.55)
• Jupiter (-2.94)

Step-by-step explanation:

The numbers you see in parentheses are the apparent magnitude. The larger the number, the fainter the object. So, if a planet has a negative apparent magnitude it appears brighter in our sky.

The values given here are for each planet at their brightest (opposition).