Alignment Of Planets As Seen From Earth
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Alignment Of Planets As Seen From Earth
Click to enlarge the photo ad look at the planets in a curved line!
As we all know our solar system consists of the sun, and a number of planets surrounding it. Basically nine planets have been known to exist till recent times, when other planets have been discovered. The basic nine planets of our solar system are namely Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto. A planet alignment what we mean is the planets coming together in a straight line. This is just a natural cosmic phenomenon and as some soothsayers prophesize the world is not going to end when such natural heavenly phenomenon occur.
A planet alignment is assumed to take place in two ways. In the first way if one were to stand at the north pole of the sun, he would see the planets placed in a straight line and the planets would appear as though they are on top of one another. Mercury would be visible and all the other planets will appear to be hidden behind it. The second type of planetary alignment takes place when planets appear to be in a straight line in the sky. This happens because the bright planets lie in the same virtual plane. This type of alignment is called ecliptic and it appears like a huge circle in the sky with the earth at the center.
According to scientific discovery and calculations a planet alignment does not happen completely, because the planets are inclined along different planes on their axis. So a total superimposition of the planets when viewed from the sun, as stated by the first theory, or the planets lying in a straight line path in the sky as stated in the second theory of planet alignment, does not happen at all.
The accurate terms for such celestial relative positioning should be planetary configuration or a loose grouping of planets. In the planet alignment, planets are almost in a straight line but not actually in a straight line. They are found to be actually within a deviation of 96 degrees from each other as in the 1983 occurrence. All the planets coming to one side of the sun is a rare event that occurs once in 200 years.
Let us see what happened in the 2000 event of planet alignment or more scientifically multiple planetary conjunctions. At the beginning of that year, the planets that could be observed with the unaided eye were seen scattered to about 160 degrees on the sky. The bright planets Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn kept appearing in different times of the day in the skies. For the world the doomsday had arrived. The polar ice caps were expected to melt, earthquakes were expected to occur and the earth was expected to tilt over. But did that ever happen? It is for us to shed our irrational fears and enjoy the beauty of celestial events.