Planetary Alignment - Not The End Of The World

Friday, 5 May 2000, 3:08 pm
Article: Alastair Thompson

Apocalypse Now? The Planets Align, Image Source NASA

Tonight the planets will line up. Not as well as they do in the image above but rather in the night sky. Looking at the sky they will appear to make form an arc from the horizon up towards what would be close to the two o'clock position.

Much has been made of the event and there are lots of resources on the internet concerning it. The following are a selection of links to resources on the event.

NASA's spin on the event is fairly typical and follows

From… http://www.nasa.gov/newsinfo/alignment.html

"You'll Have to Go to Work Next Week"

According to some people (perhaps Y2K doomsayers, looking for work), the next apocalypse is supposed to occur Friday, around 4 a.m. Eastern U.S. time. That's when the orbits of many of the planets in our Solar System will (roughly) line them up on the opposite side of the sun from Earth. A few people have predicted that this will lead to some kind of disaster, including super-high tides and devastating earthquakes.

The world hasn't ended any of the other times that the planets moved into what astronomers call conjunction, so there's no reason to think it will this time. There may well be tsunamis, earthquakes or other natural disasters Friday, but they won't be caused by the other planets.

OTHER LINKS:

For a link to a site spinning the doomsday theories see the following....you will see the event is connected to a sales pitch for survivalist equipment. The following quote is extracted to give you a quick taste.

"On or around May 5,2000 (give or take a few days) these planets (see picture) Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Sun plus our moon will line up on one side of Earth creating major stress on Planet Earth. Predictions range from a few earthquakes to major earth crust movement (slippage), polar ice cap movement, sea levels rising 100 - 300 feet or more,huge tidal waves, high winds 500 to 2000 mph, earthquakes so massive that Richter 13 or more could be possible, both coasts of USA under water, magnetic shift and much more."

http://www.zyz.com/survivalcenter/echange.html

For more considered analysis of the alignment see the following sites...

Planetary Alignments in 2000
John Mosley
Griffith Observatory
http://www.griffithobs.org/SkyAlignments.html

Bad Astronomy: Planetary alignments will cause earthquakes.
Good astronomy: Planetary alignments have relatively little to do with earthquakes.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planets.html

Planetary Conjunctions
by
Dr. Brian Monson
bmons@ctechok.org
Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics
Drumright Regional Center
http://drumright.ossm.edu/astronomy/conjunctions.html

National Solar Observatory/Sacramento Peak
Planetary Alignments
http://www.sunspot.noao.edu/PR/alignment.html

© Scoop Media

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

Contact Alastair Thompson

• Linkedin
• Twitter - @althecat
• Facebook
• Email - alastair@scoop.co.nz