[HN Gopher] A rare alignment of 7 planets is about to take place
___________________________________________________________________
A rare alignment of 7 planets is about to take place
Author : koolba
Score : 116 points
Date : 2025-01-08 19:37 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencealert.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencealert.com)
| pmdulaney wrote:
| Shouldn't there be some apocalyptic, end-of-the-world conspiracy
| theory to go along with this? I'm almost disappointed.
| jjulius wrote:
| I'm sure that astrology-Instagram is full of all kinds of ideas
| about what this means.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| I guess they didn't "predict" it.
| boothby wrote:
| Astrology and astronomy only split a few hundred years ago,
| and modern astrologers do in fact have decent models for
| the motion of the planets. This sort of alignment is
| precisely the kind of thing that astrologers use to provide
| a veneer of truthiness for their predictions.
| exabrial wrote:
| Yes, this was in a documentary called MacGyver: Lost Treasure
| of Atlantis.
|
| (this is a joke, because hn)
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Half-Life 3 confirmed! :)
| vardump wrote:
| What? Seriously? And I already popped the popcorn...
| magic_smoke_ee wrote:
| Don't give Joe Rogan or Alex Jones any ideas.
| hulitu wrote:
| I'm gonna win the lottery. If i play. /s
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toynbee_tiles
| soupfordummies wrote:
| Fascinating article. Never heard of this. There's a (likely
| mentally ill) dude in Atlanta who puts up these conspiracy
| signs on the highways about the "annunaki". He put up some
| about "Shadow Zuck" and "Vampire Elon" over Christmas.
| serial_dev wrote:
| This sounds quite interesting. I'm considering buying a telescope
| for this occasion (we moved out of the city and I've been
| thinking about it for a while, the sky is always so clear around
| very).
|
| What would you recommend as entry level beginner telescope? Is it
| worth observing all this via a telescope?
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| No a telescope won't help. The 'linear' alignment spans the
| whole sky and is best seen with the naked eye.
|
| You can click a pic with a wide-angle lens (whether on your
| phone or a camera).
| jfim wrote:
| Will a picture from a wide angle lens actually show the
| planets? I thought planets just show up as a bright dot in
| the sky.
| kadoban wrote:
| > Will a picture from a wide angle lens actually show the
| planets?
|
| Yes.
|
| > I thought planets just show up as a bright dot in the
| sky.
|
| Correct. :)
|
| There's no real way to get around that geometry problem,
| you can either see several at once but they're pinpricks or
| one at a time but potentially somewhat more clearly.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Yes, but they will show exactly as you thought with the
| exception Mars will be a noticeable red dot. Uranus is
| usually too dim to see though. Usually to photograph Uranus
| and Pluto requires multiple nights worth of images to align
| and see which dot moves between the images. That moving dot
| is the planet
| deodar wrote:
| A good pair of binoculars will be sufficient. You didn't need a
| ton of light gathering capability for casual planet viewing
| like this.
|
| Telescopes are a bit of a rabbit hole. Many cheap mass market
| telescopes are also known as hobby killers. A 6" dobsonian
| (reflector) is a good starting point for deep space objects
| like nebulae and star clusters. For planetary viewing Schmidt-
| Cassegrain telescopes are great.
|
| However, learning to use a telescope requires time and
| patience. Taking it to the field for an event like this for the
| first time may be frustrating as you will be spending most of
| the time figuring out how to collimate and align it.
|
| I certainly don't mean to discourage you from getting one
| though.
|
| A good pair of binoculars is much easier to use. They require
| no collimation out of the box and show an upright image that
| makes it much easier to navigate the sky, at the cost of
| reduced magnification and light gathering capability. You will
| be surprised how many celestial objects even 10x magnification
| reveals that are invisible to the naked eye.
|
| Happy planet gazing!
| ryandrake wrote:
| My brother started at "I'll just buy one telescope" and last
| I checked has just finished constructing a powered
| observatory on some remote land where the telescope and
| rooftop motors can be operated entirely remotely through cell
| connectivity. This is a worse hobby for your wallet than
| having a boat.
| Loughla wrote:
| That's a hilarious escalation.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's pretty normal tack. It's just most people can't
| get there vs not wanting to. A not insignificant amount
| of money is required to get to that point. It costs
| nothing to have the desire though
| dylan604 wrote:
| Binoculars are a bit misleading though as most people tire of
| trying to keep hold of them and track steadily. If you're
| going to the level of getting some sort of mount/tripod for
| the binocs, you might as well step up to a telescope with
| GoTo features with tracking.
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| A $200 6 inch / 150mm reflector with the eyepiece on the side
| is a decent backyard starter scope. You can see the moons of
| Jupiter, Saturn's rings, the crescent shape of Venus, and
| nebulas. Ask your local library about the local astronomy club.
| Someone may have a >200mm scope.
| mcdeltat wrote:
| Apparently this is visible everywhere on Earth, which is cool.
| (Sometimes sites don't bother saying where and it turns out to
| only be visible in the US - very annoying for those who live
| elsewhere.)
|
| https://starwalk.space/en/news/what-is-planet-parade
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Makes sense because the planets are so far away that a
| different viewpoint on earth won't make a noticeable
| difference. Unlike for the moon. This is why lunar eclipses are
| the ones that are only visible in certain places.
| niwtsol wrote:
| I don't think it is simply the "planets are so far away" that
| allows this to be visible from everywhere on earth. Stars are
| very far away compared to planets, and that distance makes
| them only visible from certain hemispheres (certain stars are
| only visible from certain hemispheres). I believe the fact
| that the planets are all on the ecliptic is what makes the
| alignments visible worldwide.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| syzygy eclipses (one planet hides another) are also limited
| in viewpoints, tho
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Lunar eclipses only last a few hours, so only the half of
| Earth facing the moon at the time can see them.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| It also helps that the planets are roughly on a plane visible
| from everywhere on earth.
| mannykannot wrote:
| Plus that they are near the ecliptic - comets may only be
| visible from one hemisphere (often plus some, but not all, of
| the other), even though naked-eye visible comets are
| typically further away than Venus.
|
| You will not see this alignment if you are at the south pole
| or other points sufficiently south of the antarctic circle,
| either, given the time of year.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The large/small Magellanic Clouds are further away than the
| planets and yet are only visible in the souther hemisphere.
| The difference here is that the planets are all on the same
| ecliptic path.
| vfclists wrote:
| How rare is it?
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| That's not really possible to exactly answer as it depends upon
| how tightly they are aligned. The last occurrence was March 10,
| 1982, and they aligned in a 95 degree arc. This degree of
| alignment will happen once every 175 years on average. However,
| an alignment within 4 degrees, for example, would occur every
| 400 billion years. In other words, never because the sun is
| expected to only last another 6 billion years.
| ls65536 wrote:
| There's also a lunar occultation of Mars (which is near
| opposition itself, making it relatively bright) happening in a
| few days, and then again in February, which should be visible
| from parts of the northern hemisphere: https://in-the-
| sky.org/news.php?id=20250114_16_100
| imglorp wrote:
| Is there anything special to learn about occultations like this
| or are they just curiosities like alignments?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Saturn is also playing peekaboo with the moon as well
| stevep98 wrote:
| I don't get why everyone keeps talking about the planets
| aligning. All the planets are pretty much in the same plane. So
| if you are on one of the planets, all of the others will always
| be in a line.
|
| edit: to those downvoting me, can you explain why?
| hyperhello wrote:
| I didn't, but I assume they downvoted you as a quick way of
| saying no to your question, which you chose to phrase in the
| form of a correct statement.
| aclindsa wrote:
| I think you're missing the part that from the surface of the
| Earth, we can never see that whole plane at once. So the
| special part here is that all the planets are simultaneously in
| one half of a partition of the plane by a line going through
| Earth.
| raxxor wrote:
| The special occasion is that their phase angles are all of a
| similar value so they are aligned next to each other. The phase
| angle describes the position in their respective orbit. If you
| imagine to look "down" upon the solar system, it would be the
| angle towards 12 o'clock.
|
| It is rare because the further the planets are from the sun,
| the longer their orbit periods are. While Earth completes the
| circle in just a bit above 365 days, Neptune for example takes
| nearly 165 years to do a round trip. So it would take some time
| for the slower planets to meet again in the same region in the
| sky.
| Shorel wrote:
| No, by being in a plane, the seven planets form a polygon.
|
| If you are in a planet, there is a line to any other planet.
| Two planets form a line. Three planets form a triangle. Four
| planets form some irregular polygon of four sides. And so on.
|
| In this case, the area of the polygon formed by the seven
| planets is minimal, for a period of several years, and they are
| effectively, almost in a line.
|
| This is not a common occurrence.
| throwawayk7h wrote:
| I believe the person you're responding to was observing that
| the planets will appear to be in a line to an observer on the
| surface of one of those planets.
| gweinberg wrote:
| Polygon? So on? Come on, you know you want to say "heptagon".
| dylan604 wrote:
| At anyone time due to the different radius of their orbits,
| some planets might be positioned so they would be visible
| during the day (making them not actually visible). These
| "alignmnets" mean that they are visible at the same time in the
| night sky. Them all being on the same plane just means they are
| located in different spots on the same line in the sky
| carlosjobim wrote:
| You are of course right. But for an observer on Earth, planets
| can be below the horizon. The difference this time is that
| their orbits are aligning in the other dimension as well,
| meaning they will be all above horizon when your observation
| point spins into place.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Oh Noooos, the world will end :)
|
| I remember all the dooms day articles the last time, then I think
| all 8 aligned. That is what Voyagers used to get to the outer
| planets quickly and were they are now.
|
| This time, I saw nothing about "world ending". I guess they moved
| on to other things. Too bad NASA was not funded enough to use
| this to launch a more advanced spacecraft :(
| timbit42 wrote:
| No, it is the beginning of another cycle.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| It never ends well in the movies.
| RangerScience wrote:
| > Oh Noooos, the world will end :)
|
| _reads this from Southern Californa_
|
| Legit.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It isn't as fun to speculate about fanciful and silly world
| ending mechanisms like planetary alignment, when we're actually
| locking in a bunch of ecologically devastation by boring
| processes like... status quo bias and failures to coordinate.
|
| It'd be cool as hell if we were destroyed by some grand
| universal conspiracy. Instead, we're doomed by the same force
| that makes the office lunch group unable to gather consensus
| around anything other than cheese pizza.
| bovermyer wrote:
| Cheese pizza can go directly to Hell.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I'm not opposed to cheese pizza in principle but if it
| should also be possible to pick some toppings!
| pizza wrote:
| Out of the frying pan, into the fire, as they say - but
| with pizza ovens and damnation
| juresotosek wrote:
| Oh no
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Will this be visible in the Southern hemisphere?
| sgt wrote:
| At the same time, but all the planets will be upside-down.
| celsius1414 wrote:
| And vice versa.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| It is difficult for me to not just reflectively think of the
| spinny solar system model used in schools when the reality is an
| orbital plane that differs for each planet circling the gravity
| well drain plug of the sun and us all circling the drain of the
| black hole at the middle of the galaxy, itself hurling through
| space, and for all of this only to really mean anything in
| relation to other objects in specific contexts heh
| dylan604 wrote:
| Haha, the sun isn't the plug, it is the drain. If you removed
| the sun, the solar system would cease to be. It's not like it
| would continue to orbit the spot the sun occupies
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Yes yes
| S04dKHzrKT wrote:
| PBS Spacetime has a good video on how Earth moves through the
| universe based on multiple reference frames for anyone
| interested.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lPJ5SX5p08
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| It's a mind bender for sure !
| dehrmann wrote:
| These were interesting when I was a kid, but there are so many
| specifically rare astronomical events that I'm left with a whole
| lot of "meh."
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's sad for you. Anytime you can view something that only
| happens once every so many generations is interesting at the
| least. If it's not your hobby, then just say so. That's like me
| saying I think all of the GPT chatter is meh. It doesn't
| diminish it for those that think it's man's greatest
| accomplishment.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| Does that align all gravity creating a massive solar flare?
| temp0826 wrote:
| I think it'd be more of a magnetic phenomenon than
| gravitational.
| escapsesequence wrote:
| Lots of celestial events in the US 2024/5! Eclipse, then aurora
| reaching down to southern New England, now this.
| astral_drama wrote:
| It's been quite a show! Some nice CMEs, flares, comets and now
| a big alignment. I feel really blessed to be under clear skies
| to see these ancient celestial bodies dance across the night
| sky.
| lolinder wrote:
| Are there more celestial events than usual, or did celestial
| events start trending after the two eclipses?
|
| The week after the most recent US eclipse the media started
| reporting on every single celestial event, no matter how small.
| The eclipse got so much traction that it seems like they were
| trying to drag it out as long as possible.
|
| Any given one of these events might be especially rare, but
| that's the birthday paradox in action: if you're looking for it
| you can find any number of rare celestial events in a year!
| aeonik wrote:
| The Aurora by itself is usually a once in a lifetime thing.
| That being said, the sun is projected to do this kind of
| thing more often long term. So this may be the start of a new
| trend. Though the solar cycle is around 11 years long, so
| this is the last year for quite a while that it's
| statistically more probable.
| lolinder wrote:
| Right. My question is more whether if it _weren 't_ the
| aurora, would it have been something else?
| HelloUsername wrote:
| The infographic: https://starwalk.space/gallery/images/planetary-
| alignment-in...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-11 23:01 UTC)