Planets Aligning 2012

Planets Aligning 2012 – No!  But there is one in May 2011 !

In this article, Planets Aligning 2012, we discuss the alignment of the planets with FACTS courtesy of our friends at NASA and we talk about a real alignment in May 2011. and what to expect about planets aligning in 2012!

First off we understand the confusion. The term "Planets Aligning" is a relative one. What exactly is an alignment? All planets? or 4 planets as is occurring in May 2011? And how "aligned" do they have to be to count as aligning? Perfectly straight or just appearing to be straight in line in the night sky?

on May 11th 2011 you can see 4 planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter) align in the pre-dawn sky. OK alignment is a misnomer as they are clustered in the sky, not in a straight line. But it will be a pretty sight none the less.

Below is an article from the NASA website at http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast30mar_1m/  that addresses a lot of this and covers planet alignment recently and in the past.

Planets Aligning 2012 – will a planetary alignment cause a catastrophe?

NO.

To quote the NASA article below on other alignments:

"History shows that planetary alignments are harmless. In fact, alignments like the one in 1962 and in 2000 are fairly common. The five naked-eye planets cluster together in the sky within a circle 25 degrees or less in diameter once every 57 years, on average. The next time it will happen is September 8, 2040. The 2040 grouping will include Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the crescent Moon. Clustered well to the east of the Sun, the planets will stage a spectacular show at 7:30 p.m. in the evening. (Mark your calendar now!)" Slavic

Planets Aligning 2012 – The NASA article from March 2000.

When Planets Align (or "Taking Nostradamus to School")

The April 6 grouping of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn is just the prelude to a grander alignment on May 5, 2000. On that date, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will all converge in an area of the sky less than 25 degrees across. Unfortunately, the spectacle will be lost in the glare of the Sun, which will be right in the middle of this planetary get-together!

Although the May 5 alignment won't produce a visible sky show, some people are touting the event. Why? According to doomsayers, the alignment will cause earthquakes, floods, and maybe even split our planet in two like a meat cleaver through a head of lettuce! In all fairness that sounds like an event to note on your calendar.

If these sensational claims sound familiar, it probably means you were alive 38 years ago when there was a similar celestial alignment. On February 4, 1962, the Sun, the Moon, and all the planets from Mercury to Saturn were clustered within a 17-degree area of the sky. To top it off there was a total eclipse of the Sun! Doom seemed certain to many astrologers and students of Nostradamus.

In the May 1962 issue of the Griffith Observer, astronomer Robert Richardson described the scene in Los Angeles on February 4, 1962:

Weeks beforehand we began getting inquiries [at the Griffith Observatory] from people wanting to know, "What was going to happen? What does it mean?" … Sunday, February 4 [the crowd at the Observatory] must have been the largest since it was opened to the public in 1935. By two o'clock the road leading to and from the observatory was a solid mass of cars lined up bumper-to-bumper for half a mile. One woman was weeping so badly it was hard to understand her. She was practically on the verge of collapse. "I know it's silly to carry on this way,' she gasped between sobs, 'but I can't help myself." [ref]

Fortunately, nothing happened. There were no severe earthquakes, no devastating floods, no mass destruction. With no planet-wide disaster to spoil the day, millions of onlookers enjoyed the solar eclipse.

History shows that planetary alignments are harmless. In fact, alignments like the one in 1962 and in 2000 are fairly common. The five naked-eye planets cluster together in the sky within a circle 25 degrees or less in diameter once every 57 years, on average. The next time it will happen is September 8, 2040. The 2040 grouping will include Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the crescent Moon. Clustered well to the east of the Sun, the planets will stage a spectacular show at 7:30 p.m. in the evening. (Mark your calendar now!)

If planetary alignments are common and the Earth is never destroyed, why do predictions of doom seem to attend each one?

Many people believe that when planets are aligned their gravity and tidal forces are magnified, leading to extraordinary effects here on Earth. This seems reasonable. After all, "spring tides" (peak ocean tides that arise bi-monthly) occur when the Sun, the Moon and the Earth are nearly in a straight line around the times of the New Moon and Full Moon. Shouldn't even more powerful tides arise when lots of planets are lined up?

No.
 

We can calculate the maximum tidal force that each planet has on the Earth. These values are shown in the table. Tidal effects depend on distance and mass–but especially distance. Tides decrease in intensity as the cube of the distance to the source of gravity. (If you move twice as far away from a planet, its tidal force decreases by 2³=8 times). That's why the strongest Earthly tides are caused by the nearest object — the Moon. If all the planets were to align perfectly with each one as close as possible to the Earth, their gravity would raise the ocean tides by just one twenty-fifth of one millimeter. Typical ocean tides on Earth caused by the Moon and Sun are thousands of times larger than that. Clearly, the contribution of the planets is entirely negligible, and it makes no difference to the Earth whether they are aligned or not.

Above: In this table, adapted from the Griffith Observatory's "Planetary Alignments in 2000", the Sun exerts 1 unit of tidal force on the Earth; the Moon has a little more than twice the effect of the Sun; the other nine planets together with all their moons add only another one five-thousandth as much.

So, if you've already packed away your Y2K survival gear, don't worry. There's no planet-rending catastrophe in the offing. Like most other 5ths of May, the one in the year 2000 is a more appropriate occasion for Cinco de Mayo festivities than for disaster planning.

For lesson plans and educational activities related to planetary alignments, tune into the March 30 episode of Thursday's Classroom. There is also a version of this story for kids at NASA/Marshall's NASA Kids web site.

Web Links

Planetary Alignments in 2000 – from the Griffith Observatory

Do planetary alignments cause earthquakes? – find out at badastronomy.com

PK thats it for this Planets Aligning 2012 Article

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