Monday, April 2, 2012

When will the planets align again?


A set of photographs, taken by NASA spacecraft, of the eight planets and Earth’s moon
Picture from NASA website

Well, the simple answer to this seemingly simple question is:

September 8, 2040 at around 7:30-7:40pm.










Unfortunately the link to a disaster countdown timer originally displayed on this post is no longer available. But the following link may be of interest to you.

https://universavvy.com/things-you-need-to-know-about-planetary-alignment

I suppose I will be observing this future event from another realm, hopefully the higher one; however I hope the powers that be will have the heat turned up enough to keep my feet warm.  Ha ha.

The above question arose as myself, Mike, and a friend left Crown Burger last Saturday evening, stuffed to the gills with fast food.  Venus and Jupiter were showing their stuff in all their glory, in the western sky; so Mike asked the question.

After a little bit of internet search, I discovered that "the planets never truly align like they do in movies, because they rotate on different planes and at different degrees. And if they did, it wouldn't make a difference because the gravitational effects are so minute considering the distances between the planets."

"The only type of planetary situation of interest occurred in 1984, when you could see the most planets possible at one time with the naked eye from earth, but they were nowhere near alignment.
However, they came the closest they could to alignment around 500 BC, and may come close sometime in the late 29th century. Not in your lifetime though."

The following link is to the NASA website.  It answers several questions that have to do with the end of the world as far as natural disaster is concerned.  If this topic interests you at all, I think you will enjoy this page.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html

So, what are my thoughts on when the end of the world will occur?   I tend to agree with the statement in the Bible that says no one knows the time, not even the angels in heaven.  So, with tongue in cheek, while I'm waiting, I fully intend to enjoy the good bounties of  this life.  I fully expect to visit Crown Burger next year at this time.  Ha.

3 comments:

Annie said...

2040 huh? good to know. i'll put it on my calendar.

and i'm glad you will be eating crown burger next year. enjoy!

Anonymous said...

I am sooooo preparing for crown burger bi-annually for the next 10-15 years. I'll even get to retire, and enjoy some of my retirement benefits. Thanks for doing the research. Mike M.

M W said...

Actually, planetary alignments do have an effect upon our solar system.

Jupiter's Barycenter (center of gravity) with the Sun lies slightly above the Sun's surface (1.068 solar radii from the Sun's center). Because of this the Sun wobbles around this point.

A large portion of the extra-solar planets found so far have been on account of this phenomenon of planets tugging slightly on their parent stars, causing them to wobble slightly.

If all of our solar system's planets formed into one super planet, (or lined up on one side of the sun) the barycenter would be 310,000 miles away from the Sun’s surface.

By comparison Earth moves the Sun a mere 280 miles from its center (Sun’s diameter is 862,400 miles).