Learn Spanish (Latin America): Hace dos noches que observo los anillos del planeta. - I have been observing the planet's rings for two nights.

When an action started in the past but is still happening right now, Spanish uses the present tense. Because you are still observing the rings tonight, you use the present tense observo along with the hace... que structure.

Why do we use the word hace here? Doesn't that mean "he/she/it makes"?

Yes, hace comes from the verb hacer (to make or do). In time expressions, Spanish literally says "It makes two nights that I observe..." (Hace dos noches que observo...). It is just the standard way to express that you have been doing something for a specific amount of time!

Could I change the order of the sentence and put the time at the end?

Yes, but you have to change the formula slightly! If you put the time at the end, you drop the word que and add desde (since). It becomes: Observo los anillos del planeta desde hace dos noches.

Wait, why is it del planeta? Shouldn't a word ending in "-a" be feminine?

Planeta is a special exception! It is a masculine word (el planeta), which is why we use the contraction del (de + el = del) to say "of the planet." It joins other common masculine words ending in "-a", like el problema and el mapa.