Technologies

The Next Planet Parade Is Coming Soon: Here’s How to See Six Planets Line Up

Mark your calendar — you can catch Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus in the sky at the same time.

Fresh off the excitement of the Perseids meteor shower is a chance to see six planets lined up in the sky at once. These events, colloquially known as planet parades, only occur about once or twice a year, with the most recent one in February showing off all seven planets in our solar system at once. The next one will feature six of our closest celestial neighbors, and the event starts on Aug. 20.

The six planets sharing the sky will be Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus. Mars will technically be there at the beginning of the night, but it dips below the horizon right after sunset, so it won’t be visible when all of the others are. Of those, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will be visible to the naked eye, while the others will require high-powered binoculars or, preferably, a telescope.

Even though they’re spread out across the eastern and southern skies, the planets pair up with this one, making many of them pretty easy to find if you know what to look for. From east to west, here’s where each one will be.

Mercury — Eastern sky near the Cancer constellation. It’ll pop over the horizon just before sunrise, so you’ll have limited time to view it before the sun comes up and obfuscates it.
Venus — At the lower tip of the Gemini constellation in the eastern sky, a couple of hours before sunrise.
Jupiter — Will be near Venus, also in the Gemini constellation. It rises about an hour before Venus does.
Uranus — Will be near the upper tip of Taurus, rising after midnight. This one will require some magnification. If you see Pleiades, a cluster of stars at the upper tip of Taurus, you’ve gone too far upward.
Saturn and Neptune — These two are right next to each other and will be sitting between the Pisces and Cetus constellations in the southern skies. Neptune will be closer to Pisces while Saturn will be closer to Cetus.

Since it takes a long time for planets to move through the night sky, Aug. 20 is the starting point, and it’ll run through the rest of the month. Once September hits, Mercury will be too close to the sun, which will obscure it. From that point, there will be a five-planet parade for a while until Venus sinks below the horizon in early October. So, in all, you’ll have a chance to see at least five planets for over a month.

Will the planet parade be visible from my region?

Yes. We double checked Stellarium’s sky map from a variety of locations across the country, and everything above will be applicable everywhere in the continental US. Per Starwalk, the parade will also be visible in other parts of the world after the following dates for about the same amount of time (one to two weeks).

Abu Dhabi — Aug. 9
Athens, Beijing, Berlin, Tokyo and London — Aug. 10
Mumbai and Hong Kong — Aug. 11
Reykjavik, São Paulo and Sydney — Aug. 12

The planets will move based on date, though. The above locations are where they’ll be around Aug. 20, but if you’re looking a week or so later, they’ll be in the same general area, but will shift to a slightly different part of the sky.

Will I need any special equipment?

Yes. Neptune and Uranus, especially, will require some sort of magnification to see. We recommend a telescope, but high-powered binoculars may work if the sky is dark enough. Saturn is also difficult to see without magnification, so you’ll want it for that too. Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury should be visible on their own with the naked eye.

We also recommend taking a trip out to the country, as light pollution from suburbs and cities can make it even more difficult to see Neptune and Uranus. The moon will be out as well, which may make Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury harder to see. Other factors like weather may also make it more difficult to see all of them. If you’re lucky, you may see a few shooting stars at the tail end of Perseids as well.

Technologies

You May Soon Be Able to Chat on WhatsApp Even Without an Account

‘Guest chats’ isn’t in beta testing yet, but will likely be released in a future WhatsApp update.

Not part of the WhatsApp club yet? Not to worry, it looks like you’ll soon still be able to dip your toes in without signing up.

A new feature called «guest chats,» found by WABetaInfo in a beta build ,will reportedly allow anyone without a WhatsApp account to chat with someone who does after the feature is rolled out in a future update.

To start a guest chat, an app user would need to invite a non-app user via a link to an online chat. The invited party does not need to have WhatsApp installed on their phone nor have a WhatsApp account, and the sender can share the online chat link on any platform they choose — text, email, social media, etc.

Upon opening a chat link, the guest will be able to engage in encrypted chat with the sender. The guest chats will be only one-to-one — no group chats — and photos, videos or GIFs can be allowed to be shared. Voice and video messages won’t be supported.

Meta did not immediately to inquiries from CNET about this story.

This forthcoming WhatsApp feature brings app owner Meta further in line with the European Union’s 2020 Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act. One of the provisions of that legislation was allowing WhatsApp and Messenger users in Europe to communicate with people using other messaging services, what Meta refers to as «third-party chats.»

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world, with more than 2 billion monthly users. The US leads the way with the most WhatsApp iOS downloads.

Technologies

WhatsApp Adds Tools to Save You From Scams

The Meta-owned service says it took down nearly 7 million accounts linked to criminal scam centers.

WhatsApp, the popular messaging service, says it’s cracking down on millions of accounts linked to scam networks and providing users new tools to alert them when they might be targeted.

In a post, the Meta-owned service says it took down more than 6.8 million accounts linked to scam networks primarily based in Southeast Asia. WhatsApp said that many of them are driven by cryptocurrency investment scams and pyramid schemes, and that some use ChatGPT to generate text and links that may send users to other apps.

WhatsApp says that for users, it’s adding new safeguards to group messaging and individual messages that will warn users when someone who’s not in their contacts list tries to initiate a chat or add a user to a group messaging thread.

Overall, the service is advising that users take more time to consider responding to a chat request and to verify whether someone trying to contact them is who they say they are. Using a secondary form of communication is one way to do that, WhatsApp says: «If they messaged you on WhatsApp, call them on their phone – or if they sent you an SMS, give them a WhatsApp call using the phone number you know is theirs.»

WhatsApp is the world’s most widely-used encrypted messaging app.

Technologies

All PS Plus Subscribers Can Play Lies of P and Other Games All August Long

Subscribers can also play this zombie survival game or an anime fighting game.

Lies of P is an award-winning game that reimagines the story of Pinocchio as a soulslike action role-playing game set in a grimy world overrun by killer mechanical puppets. And all PlayStation Plus subscribers can play that award-winning game, and others, at no additional cost now.

PlayStation Plus is Sony’s version of Xbox Game Pass, and it offers subscribers a large, constantly expanding library of games. Subscribers can choose from the Essential, Extra and Premium tiers, which each have unique perks and benefits. The plans start at $10 a month, and each tier gives subscribers access to monthly games and rewards.

Here are the games all PS Plus subscribers can play throughout August. You can also check out the games Sony added to the PS Plus Game Catalog in July, including Cyberpunk 2077.

Lies of P

This is a macabre soulslike game akin to Bloodborne and based on Carlo Collodi’s classic tale, The Adventures of Pinocchio. Puppets have torn the city of Krat apart, and you play as Pinocchio as he searches for Geppetto in the grisly, oil-stained city. You’ll encounter traps, twisted contraptions and maniacal humans in your search throughout the city, and maybe you’ll find what it means to be human along the way.

DayZ

Can you survive the zombie apocalypse? DayZ places you and dozens of other players into a dense 163 square-kilometer (about 63 square-mile) map filled with zombies and materials you’ll need to last. And with no checkpoints or saves, you’ll need to work together; otherwise, you’ll have to start all over.

My Hero One’s Justice 2

This over-the-top fighting game is the sequel to the arena fighting game My Hero One’s Justice. In this game, you can fight as — or against — many of the characters from the popular anime series My Hero Academia, including All Might, Endeavor and Fat Gum. You’ll use your characters’ Quirks — or unique powers — to overcome your opponent’s abilities and win these epic clashes.

For more on PlayStation Plus, here’s what to know about the service and a rundown of PS Plus Extra and Premium games added in July. You can also check out the latest and upcoming games on Xbox Game Pass and Apple Arcade.