Planetary Alignment

Somebody mentioned this to me the other day and I'm just wondering if they're right.

In 2012 all the planets will be lined up in a straight line - is this true. They also wanted to know how this would look from an observing point of view

Hi Joanne,

I also had people ask me this. All I told them is that there is a prophecy mainly from Mayan descent in South America that the world will end in 2012. In some cases, it is believed as such because that is as far as the Mayan calendar goes. There is even a movie made, due for release next summer, called 2012 about a great disaster (I like the teaser trailer for it myself, it's another Roland Emmerich disaster flick).

There's too much for me to quote from websites on the subject right now, but the jist is of a galactic (re?)allignment in our galaxy (between Earth and galactic center) and the next change in precession with a shift in the Earth's tilt.

Even NASA has been getting in on the act:
2012news.com/?p=29

Draw your own conclusions from here:
www.viewzone.com/endtime.html


Seanie.

Don't know about 2012 (must check starry night for that!)
but there is a nice conjunction of the moon and some planets on new years eve.
Venus will be brilliantly bright next to the crescent moon
Jupiter you will see and Mercury if you have a clear plat horizon. Uranus, Neptune are there also but wont be visible to the naked eye.
Still a nice conjunction of sorts all the same.

Depends what's meant by "all the planets!"

There is a nice triple conjunction (within 5degs) of Mercury, Venus and Mars on 21 May 2011 but nothing in 2012 involving more than a couple of planets.
There is a nice triple of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (within 15degs) on 1 April 2020.
There are no conjunctions (within 15degs) of "all" the classical planets (out to Saturn) as far as 2020 (as far as I bothered to check!)

"End of the World" conjunctions of all the planets are pretty common amongst Doom-mongers who gather on mountain tops... but when the appointed time comes and then goes they usually shrug and say "same time next year lads?" and head home... Except in America where they like to take things to extremes and top themselves!

The Mayans had hugh problems with the accuracy of their stone slide-rules, so their predictions should be treated with some circumspection!

Happy Christmas all,

Phil.

PS - REPENT! The end of the turkey is nigh! (you wish!!) :silly:

jmcc5 wrote:

Somebody mentioned this to me the other day and I'm just wondering if they're right.

In 2012 all the planets will be lined up in a straight line - is this true. They also wanted to know how this would look from an observing point of view

there is no alignment in 2012, it was on may 5 2000. it is a load of hippy claptrap. see this link. www.revelation13.net/polar.html . just one example if you google it. the thing in 2012 is that the sun crosses the center of the milky way and if you believe the crap the world ends ?, we reach an new era of mental enlignment (namely these people should be locked up and the lunatics let out as the world would be more sane. ;) ). supposedly it is replete with signifinace because it is an ancient calander, and obiously the gods/aliens granted our primitive this knowledge beacause they were obviously to thick to figure it out or to invent the internet and grant the idiots and lunatics of this world a global voice.

it seems to have escaped these people,that the acient maya had no clue we lived in a galaxy quite apart from the fact that they would not have known where the center was. then there is the minor fact that our calender is wrong by at least 3 to 5 years so it is more likely that this event will not coincide with the same date in our calender (it has possibly already past). there is no significance in this date anymore than any other date, only of significance if your an acient mayan.

in case some people have not noticed there is a little sarcasm in this post. this sort of rubbish spread by an ignorant media just tends to get me a little wound up. it is not aimed at anyone here.

Hi everyone,

I had to wait 'til I got home to check this one out but Belgian mathematician Jean Meeus writes about planetary alignments in Mathematical Astronomy Morsels (Willmann-Bell), specifically on pages 186 to 189.

He approaches the problem by assuming all the planets are aligned at a point in time and then calculates how long it will take for this to occur again. In short, his answer is 3 x 10 to the 17 years (that's 3 times 10 with 17 zeros after it!) -- in other words, far longer than the age of the Solar System!

To get this figure he also had to assume the planets travel in circular orbits and these orbits don't get perturbed over time. In reality, the planet orbits are not perfectly circular and do shift ever so slightly annually -- i.e., the Earth's perihelion point takes 117,000 years (I think) to make one circuit of the Sun.

So, there'll be lots of more Christmases to enjoy before any planetary alignment sends us scurrying for the shelters.

Have a great Christmas and Happy New Year!

John

P.S., I rather like the prediction of the Church of BLAIR! who suggested that in 2047 the Earth will be invaded by 40-foot high multicoloured space lemurs who will ask us to repent or face being beaten senseless with giant burritos :silly: