Planetary line ups

Factual Questions
1

I know there was one last May 5th.
Haven’t there been others?
How far back can we calculate?

2

Here’s a good page on alignments and the dire predictions accompanying them:

http://www.griffithobs.org/SkyAlignments.html

We can calculate back arbitrarly far, but the results get a little sketchy any more that a billion years back or so.

3

It’s difficult to predict them too far in the past/future because small errors in the positions and velocities now add up to big ones the farther away in time you go.

Note that due to the planets’ various orbital tilts, it’s impossible for all the planets to align a la “Tomb Raider”. And the 5/5/2000 alignment wasn’t a very good one. The Griffith Observatory link Podkayne mentioned is a good one. I have one on my site: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planets.html with links to other pages too.

4

Phil, You rock!

5

Yo, Bad Astronomer, while you’re here, do you mind popping in on my thread and helping me out?

Thanks! :slight_smile:

6

Another good link by Sten Odenwald…
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q1298.html
More from him here under the “conjunctions” heading…
http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/asolsys.html

p.s. Hi Phil! I’m surprised you didn’t link to your Tomb Raider review! :slight_smile:

7

Those in the know will find it without my links. :wink:

Actually, there are so many planetary alignment pages out there it’s getting hard to keep them straight. Even the twinkies at the Survival Center had theirs up last I checked, a few months back. I link to them from my alignment page.