Whether you’re an astronomer or not, it’s easy to get caught up in this. These days, news and social media ring out celebrations of alignments and an eclipse, plus the upcoming solar equinox. These are all really significant — and they happen all the time.

The full moon at the end of this week is marked each month. These are especially impressive when on the backdrop of the horizon. To me, the fun feature of a full moon is that it mirrors the Sun as though they’re on opposite sides of a wildly out-of-balance teeter-totter. The Sun sets and the Moon rises (and vice versa) at the same time in this phase. As the Moon drifts in its orbit a few degrees each day, this synchronization falls out until you might be lucky enough to see a very thin crescent alongside the Sun a couple weeks later.

The Moon’s full phase can occasionally line up so that the Sun’s light gets blocked by Earth, casting only a sunset-like glow through our atmosphere and onto the Moon. This once-in-a-while feature, a lunar eclipse, just happens to line up so that late on Thursday night you can witness it if the weather is good. You can observe the progression of Earth’s shadow across the face of our companion as it orbits through that ruddy dimness.

A week later, we mark the beginning of “spring,” signified astronomically by the moment when rays of Sun point exactly at our equator. For us, this alignment is significant because it means the rising and setting of our star will be perfectly aligned east and west. On the Wasatch Front, with our slopes falling toward the basin of Great Salt Lake, we often have a good view of the western horizon and streets oriented on perfect east-west lines. The numbered streets (e.g., 24th Street) in Ogden with a good view of the western horizon create a perfect marker for this at sunset. You can look before and after the equinox as well and perceive the seasonal progression of the Sun in our sky until it returns in the fall.

The big press for astronomy of late has been about an alignment of the planets. It’s exciting that this parade of objects in the solar system could all be in the sky simultaneously. Yet, it might not be as big a deal as it’s being made out to be. Sure, Venus is on the horizon and Jupiter is higher up and Mars farther to our left all at the same time, but this is not uncommon. And yes, Uranus and Neptune and others are up in the sky, but you can’t see them. And even if you could, this “alignment” isn’t so much a cluster of planets seemingly colliding as it is just a nice instance when they all are up, splayed out across the dome above us.

What’s inspiring to me is that, if you take a look at these objects (their positions are knowable with an internet search or an app on your phone), they’re always lined up on what’s known as the “ecliptic,” the same line on which the Sun seems to drift throughout the year if we could see it against a backdrop of stars. Every planet, including ours, is on a kind of disk rotating about the Sun, the same geometric “plane” as we say. As each planet traces out its unique orbit, our perspective shows each plowing a path that has the same backdrop of stars, be it in the constellation Taurus (where Jupiter is now) or Gemini (where you’ll find Mars). Positions will change, but you can be assured that these points of light will wander along this clear path, both now and into the future.

Of course, to really appreciate our astronomy and our skies, simply turn off your porch lights and go outside, like Walt Whitman in a famous poem about the “Learn’d Astronomer.” Instead of becoming “tired and sick” with my astronomy lecture, step out to look “up in perfect silence at the stars.”

Adam Johnston is a professor of physics and director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at Weber State University, where he helps prepare future teachers and supports educators throughout Utah. This commentary is provided through a partnership with Weber State. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent the institutional values or positions of the university.