Common tangents to spheres in \(\mathbb R^{3}\) (Q818699)

In the same journal \textit{I. G. Macdonald}, \textit{J. Pach} and \textit{T. Theobald} in [Discrete Comput. Geom. 26, No. 1, 1--17 (2001; Zbl 0989.51013)] and \textit{O. Devillers}, \textit{B. Mourrain}, \textit{F. P. Preparata} and \textit{P. Trebuchet} in [Discrete Comput. Geom. 29, No. 1, 83--104 (2003; Zbl 1031.52008)] proved that four unit spheres in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) have in general at most 12 common tangents, but Megyesi in 2001 established that it drops to 8 in the case of unit spheres with coplanar non-collinear centers. In [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 354, No. 12, 4815--4829 (2002; Zbl 1063.14066)] \textit{F. Sottile} and \textit{T. Theobald} proved that there are \(3\cdot 2^{n-1}\) complex common tangent lines to \(2n-2\) general spheres in \(\mathbb{R}^n\), and that there exists a choice of spheres with all common tangents real. In the present paper it is proved that four distinct spheres in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) have infinitely many real common tangents if and only if they have aligned centers and at least one real common tangent.