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Debunking Astronomy Myths

Science >

Writing about astronomy can sometimes be a double-edged sword.

It’s always fun to share the absolutely stunning beauty and design of the cosmos - the complexity of the solar system, explosive supernovae, black holes, majestic galaxies, and meteor showers.

The not-so-fun part comes in having to debunk myths and distortions concerning the universe - untruths such as faster-than-light travel, alien visitors, a Moon made of cheese, and this month’s angst about the grouping of the planets. Why, some people just get plain mad.

By now you know that on the evening of May 4/5 the five visible planets including the sun and moon are grouped together rather nicely. Unfortunately, we won’t see it because of the sun’s blinding brightness. But for some that is of little concern. Mass destruction of planet Earth ranks just a little higher.

But before we delve into destruction, let’s have some background...

The law says that everything that has mass has gravity and that the force of gravity attracts things.

Massive planetary bodies pull heavily on each other in very noticeable ways. For example, it is because the Earth and Moon pull on each other that we see the tides ebb and flow at the beach. The Moon actually pulls our oceans several meters towards it in a giant bulge. As the Earth rotates under this bulge of water, the tides seem to rise before our very eyes, submerging surprised beachgoers who line up their towels a little too close to water’s edge.

May’s Celestial Disaster Scenario goes something like this: If the Moon has that much effect, imagine what will happen when the Big Guys out there – the sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - are all pulling on us at once from the same direction? Surely the earth’s crust will be pulled so much that earthquakes will shake us and volcanoes will bake us into extinction!

Sorry...no.

Planetary alignments like this happen several times a century and... well... nothing extraordinary ever happens. There was a greater pull on Earth back in December of last year when the Moon made its "close" approach, but, alas, nothing happened then. In fact, nothing of geologic note has ever been recorded in human history during planetary alignments.

But what about the sun?! Surely, the story goes, these planets all lined up will cause the sun to stretch and pull! This will cause the sun to erupt with enormous flares which will shower the Earth in a massive solar storm, disrupting our magnetic field and exposing us to fatal cosmic rays!!!

Uhhh... sorry again.

In the last hundreds of years there have been planetary alignments which have had much more of a yank on the sun than the May 2000 line-up, and nothing happened.

This week’s excitement is truly much ado about nothing; an astronomical non-event.

Just so you’re not disappointed, though, there exists some very real doomsday fodder which seriously threatens life on planet Earth. If, for example, a massive star blows up in the neighborhood, we are toast. Betelgeuse in Orion and Eta Carinae are two prime candidates for that. And if an asteroid only about 10 miles wide - a mere pebble in the heavens - hits us, we will have a mass extinction of life on earth.

There, we can all sleep better now.

For "action shots" of the alignment go to firstlightastro.com/icolumn.html. Any questions? Write me at ritter@firstlightastro.com.

Until next time - if there is one! - clear skies!

QuickTime animations of April-May movements of the planets
>> From Earth's point-of-view (533K)
>> From above the Solar System (910K)

Posted by Administrator at 2000.04.30 09:38 AM | Comments (0)

Historic Alignments

Observing >

For millennia the sun, moon, planets, and stars have served as guideposts for humans. In the next several weeks we’ll see several examples of how the heavens influence us even today.

PLANETARY ALIGNMENT ON APRIL 22nd

Passover and Easter rely heavily on the movements of heavenly orbs to determine their dates, if not their significance.

Long ago the Hebrew people would begin their year in the month of Nisan. Nisan would start on the new moon that followed the spring equinox. Two weeks later on 14 Nisan, which happened near the full moon, they would remember Passover. This commemorated the eventful night thousands of years ago in Egypt when the angel of death “passed over” the Hebrew houses marked with the blood of a lamb.

Easter’s date is tightly tied to Passover’s. Jesus of Nazareth was killed at Passover in about A.D. 33. Christians celebrate his resurrection from the dead several days later.

This Tuesday is the first full moon following last month’s equinox; Passover is celebrated Thursday; Easter on Sunday. Next year we’ll have different moons, so a whole new set of dates for these holidays.

Some look to the skies not for religious celebration but for counsel or prognostication. Planetary alignments, like the much heralded one happening now and climaxing around May 5th, have been extraordinarily influential for thousands of years as signs from the heavens.

For the ancient Chinese it was believed that Heaven declared both the beginning of time and the start of the mighty Hsia dynasty in an incredibly tight planetary grouping on February 26, 1953 B.C.

The Shang and the Chou dynasties were also ushered in on planetary get-togethers, seen by the Chinese as “Mandates from Heaven.”

In 1226, the Mongolian leader/genius/friend-of-no-one, Genghis Khan, spared the lives of an estimated 100,000 people simply because of the “bad omen” of a planetary alignment that year. Twenty million other victims of Khan weren’t so fortunate.

If you think that we are above all this in our “enlightened” age, think again. Just 20 years ago, in 1982, when the planets were in a zig-zag “line” there were fears by some not familiar with the laws of nature that the united gravitational effect of the planets would get the sun all hot and bothered. Somehow Earth would get all shook up with California rocking and rolling right into the ocean. Needless to say...

And now, just weeks away from the next big alignment, books, websites, and fringe lunatics are again heralding the end of the age.

Solar system bodies influence us, to be sure. The sun keeps us warm and alive, asteroids crash into us occasionally with mass extinction force, Jupiter and Saturn protect us from many incoming comets, and without the Moon to stabilize us we wouldn’t be here.

But there is no evidence we will suffer anything but an attack of romanticism next month with our pretty planets all in a row.

If you are interested, the details of the historic alignments are covered in detail in the May issue of Sky & Telescope, and I’ll have charts and QuickTime movies of those planetary arrangements and more at firstlightastro.com/icolumn.html.

Here in this column next time, we’ll discuss briefly what sort of destruction truly awaits us next month - if any.

Until then, happy holidays and clear skies!

QuickTime animations of April-May movements of the planets
>> From Earth's point-of-view (533K)
>> From above the Solar System (910K)

View Hsia-dynasty Alignment

View Khan's alignment

Posted by Administrator at 2000.04.16 09:40 AM | Comments (0)

The Alignment

The Solar System >

Years ago while camping, my friends and I would watch - in both amazement and horror - as Mothra-sized moths would flutter about the campfire in a bizarre mating ritual. What was a little disturbing was that their aerial acrobatics would eventually take them into the fire, to a sizzling, although ecstatic, death. This doesn’t say much for the intelligence of moths, but it is an analogy for what’s going in the sky this month.

THE MOON AND PLANETS ON APRIL 6TH WITHOUT ATMOSPHERE TO BLEACH THE SKY. (THE "LEFT" SIDE IS THE EVENING SKY, THE "RIGHT" SIDE IS THE DAWN SKY.)

Those of you who keep an eye on the planets as they wander through the heavens month after month may have noticed some things.

In the early predawn skies, just before the Sun’s light blots out the stars, bright Venus and dim, wee Mercury have been trading places with each other, all the while getting closer and closer to the rising Sun.

In the twilight evening skies, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn have been in a months’ long dance marathon, waltzing closer and closer to each other and to the setting sun.

Like cosmic, mating moths progressing toward The Great Flame, they have all been shifting positions around each other, while at the same time getting closer to the sun. The moth analogy falls short in that 1) the planets are actually going around to the other side of the sun, not into it, and 2) planets don’t mate.

What’s going on here?

They are all positioning themselves for the Great Alignment in May which will be the planetary event of the year. All the naked eye visible planets will be, more or less, in a line. What an awesome opportunity!

Well...sorta.

The downside to all this is that the Sun is at the front of the queue. Alas, that big ball of life-giving energy will literally blind us from all the hoopla. We won’t be able to experience what must be a beautiful sight, what with all those planets bunched up so close you could cover them with outstretched hands.

In fact, these are the last couple weeks to see them at all before their big line-up.

Unfortunately the morning couple, Mercury and Venus, will be really tough to observe for us in the northern hemisphere. Our tilt and their position in the solar system will not allow good seeing.

But as to the evening sky trio, this week is the most pleasing because it will include our neighbor, the Moon. The young crescent will float by them most closely on the 6th. In fact, all of them will be so well grouped then that a good pair of binoculars might capture them all in the same field of view. It may also be a good time for you to consider some simple astrophotography considering that this will be a cosmic Kodak moment.

While observing them over the next fortnight, remember that Jupiter is the brightest, Saturn a little dimmer, and tiny Mars is dimmest with a hint of red. With this in mind you’ll see how they seem to slowly frolic around each other and how complicated it must have been for early astronomers to work out their orbits with none of those bad boys staying still (especially us!).

Of course, I’ll have charts and movies to help you identify all these planets at firstlightastro.com/icolumn.html. But JPL and NASA have a stunning photo album which includes all these planets close-up and personal at photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov. Another image exhibition is at solarviews.com. Go and be amazed!

More on the Alignment in my next couple of columns. Until next time, clear skies!

Mark Ritter is a high school astronomy instructor and advisor for FirstLight Astronomy Club. You can write him at ritter@firstlightastro.com.

>> Large image of Solar System

>> Planets in Motion: April (680K). Requires QuickTime.

Posted by Administrator at 2000.04. 2 09:43 AM | Comments (0)



Looking for something?	« March 2000 \| Main \| May 2000 » Debunking Astronomy Myths Science > Writing about astronomy can sometimes be a double-edged sword. It’s always fun to share the absolutely stunning beauty and design of the cosmos - the complexity of the solar system, explosive supernovae, black holes, majestic galaxies, and meteor showers. The not-so-fun part comes in having to debunk myths and distortions concerning the universe - untruths such as faster-than-light travel, alien visitors, a Moon made of cheese, and this month’s angst about the grouping of the planets. Why, some people just get plain mad. By now you know that on the evening of May 4/5 the five visible planets including the sun and moon are grouped together rather nicely. Unfortunately, we won’t see it because of the sun’s blinding brightness. But for some that is of little concern. Mass destruction of planet Earth ranks just a little higher. But before we delve into destruction, let’s have some background... The law says that everything that has mass has gravity and that the force of gravity attracts things. Massive planetary bodies pull heavily on each other in very noticeable ways. For example, it is because the Earth and Moon pull on each other that we see the tides ebb and flow at the beach. The Moon actually pulls our oceans several meters towards it in a giant bulge. As the Earth rotates under this bulge of water, the tides seem to rise before our very eyes, submerging surprised beachgoers who line up their towels a little too close to water’s edge. May’s Celestial Disaster Scenario goes something like this: If the Moon has that much effect, imagine what will happen when the Big Guys out there – the sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - are all pulling on us at once from the same direction? Surely the earth’s crust will be pulled so much that earthquakes will shake us and volcanoes will bake us into extinction! Sorry...no. Planetary alignments like this happen several times a century and... well... nothing extraordinary ever happens. There was a greater pull on Earth back in December of last year when the Moon made its "close" approach, but, alas, nothing happened then. In fact, nothing of geologic note has ever been recorded in human history during planetary alignments. But what about the sun?! Surely, the story goes, these planets all lined up will cause the sun to stretch and pull! This will cause the sun to erupt with enormous flares which will shower the Earth in a massive solar storm, disrupting our magnetic field and exposing us to fatal cosmic rays!!! Uhhh... sorry again. In the last hundreds of years there have been planetary alignments which have had much more of a yank on the sun than the May 2000 line-up, and nothing happened. This week’s excitement is truly much ado about nothing; an astronomical non-event. Just so you’re not disappointed, though, there exists some very real doomsday fodder which seriously threatens life on planet Earth. If, for example, a massive star blows up in the neighborhood, we are toast. Betelgeuse in Orion and Eta Carinae are two prime candidates for that. And if an asteroid only about 10 miles wide - a mere pebble in the heavens - hits us, we will have a mass extinction of life on earth. There, we can all sleep better now. For "action shots" of the alignment go to firstlightastro.com/icolumn.html. Any questions? Write me at ritter@firstlightastro.com. Until next time - if there is one! - clear skies! QuickTime animations of April-May movements of the planets >> From Earth's point-of-view (533K) >> From above the Solar System (910K) Posted by Administrator at 2000.04.30 09:38 AM \| Comments (0) Historic Alignments Observing > For millennia the sun, moon, planets, and stars have served as guideposts for humans. In the next several weeks we’ll see several examples of how the heavens influence us even today. PLANETARY ALIGNMENT ON APRIL 22nd Passover and Easter rely heavily on the movements of heavenly orbs to determine their dates, if not their significance. Long ago the Hebrew people would begin their year in the month of Nisan. Nisan would start on the new moon that followed the spring equinox. Two weeks later on 14 Nisan, which happened near the full moon, they would remember Passover. This commemorated the eventful night thousands of years ago in Egypt when the angel of death “passed over” the Hebrew houses marked with the blood of a lamb. Easter’s date is tightly tied to Passover’s. Jesus of Nazareth was killed at Passover in about A.D. 33. Christians celebrate his resurrection from the dead several days later. This Tuesday is the first full moon following last month’s equinox; Passover is celebrated Thursday; Easter on Sunday. Next year we’ll have different moons, so a whole new set of dates for these holidays. Some look to the skies not for religious celebration but for counsel or prognostication. Planetary alignments, like the much heralded one happening now and climaxing around May 5th, have been extraordinarily influential for thousands of years as signs from the heavens. For the ancient Chinese it was believed that Heaven declared both the beginning of time and the start of the mighty Hsia dynasty in an incredibly tight planetary grouping on February 26, 1953 B.C. The Shang and the Chou dynasties were also ushered in on planetary get-togethers, seen by the Chinese as “Mandates from Heaven.” In 1226, the Mongolian leader/genius/friend-of-no-one, Genghis Khan, spared the lives of an estimated 100,000 people simply because of the “bad omen” of a planetary alignment that year. Twenty million other victims of Khan weren’t so fortunate. If you think that we are above all this in our “enlightened” age, think again. Just 20 years ago, in 1982, when the planets were in a zig-zag “line” there were fears by some not familiar with the laws of nature that the united gravitational effect of the planets would get the sun all hot and bothered. Somehow Earth would get all shook up with California rocking and rolling right into the ocean. Needless to say... And now, just weeks away from the next big alignment, books, websites, and fringe lunatics are again heralding the end of the age. Solar system bodies influence us, to be sure. The sun keeps us warm and alive, asteroids crash into us occasionally with mass extinction force, Jupiter and Saturn protect us from many incoming comets, and without the Moon to stabilize us we wouldn’t be here. But there is no evidence we will suffer anything but an attack of romanticism next month with our pretty planets all in a row. If you are interested, the details of the historic alignments are covered in detail in the May issue of Sky & Telescope, and I’ll have charts and QuickTime movies of those planetary arrangements and more at firstlightastro.com/icolumn.html. Here in this column next time, we’ll discuss briefly what sort of destruction truly awaits us next month - if any. Until then, happy holidays and clear skies! QuickTime animations of April-May movements of the planets >> From Earth's point-of-view (533K) >> From above the Solar System (910K) View Hsia-dynasty Alignment View Khan's alignment Posted by Administrator at 2000.04.16 09:40 AM \| Comments (0) The Alignment The Solar System > Years ago while camping, my friends and I would watch - in both amazement and horror - as Mothra-sized moths would flutter about the campfire in a bizarre mating ritual. What was a little disturbing was that their aerial acrobatics would eventually take them into the fire, to a sizzling, although ecstatic, death. This doesn’t say much for the intelligence of moths, but it is an analogy for what’s going in the sky this month. THE MOON AND PLANETS ON APRIL 6TH WITHOUT ATMOSPHERE TO BLEACH THE SKY. (THE "LEFT" SIDE IS THE EVENING SKY, THE "RIGHT" SIDE IS THE DAWN SKY.) Those of you who keep an eye on the planets as they wander through the heavens month after month may have noticed some things. In the early predawn skies, just before the Sun’s light blots out the stars, bright Venus and dim, wee Mercury have been trading places with each other, all the while getting closer and closer to the rising Sun. In the twilight evening skies, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn have been in a months’ long dance marathon, waltzing closer and closer to each other and to the setting sun. Like cosmic, mating moths progressing toward The Great Flame, they have all been shifting positions around each other, while at the same time getting closer to the sun. The moth analogy falls short in that 1) the planets are actually going around to the other side of the sun, not into it, and 2) planets don’t mate. What’s going on here? They are all positioning themselves for the Great Alignment in May which will be the planetary event of the year. All the naked eye visible planets will be, more or less, in a line. What an awesome opportunity! Well...sorta. The downside to all this is that the Sun is at the front of the queue. Alas, that big ball of life-giving energy will literally blind us from all the hoopla. We won’t be able to experience what must be a beautiful sight, what with all those planets bunched up so close you could cover them with outstretched hands. In fact, these are the last couple weeks to see them at all before their big line-up. Unfortunately the morning couple, Mercury and Venus, will be really tough to observe for us in the northern hemisphere. Our tilt and their position in the solar system will not allow good seeing. But as to the evening sky trio, this week is the most pleasing because it will include our neighbor, the Moon. The young crescent will float by them most closely on the 6th. In fact, all of them will be so well grouped then that a good pair of binoculars might capture them all in the same field of view. It may also be a good time for you to consider some simple astrophotography considering that this will be a cosmic Kodak moment. While observing them over the next fortnight, remember that Jupiter is the brightest, Saturn a little dimmer, and tiny Mars is dimmest with a hint of red. With this in mind you’ll see how they seem to slowly frolic around each other and how complicated it must have been for early astronomers to work out their orbits with none of those bad boys staying still (especially us!). Of course, I’ll have charts and movies to help you identify all these planets at firstlightastro.com/icolumn.html. But JPL and NASA have a stunning photo album which includes all these planets close-up and personal at photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov. Another image exhibition is at solarviews.com. Go and be amazed! More on the Alignment in my next couple of columns. Until next time, clear skies! Mark Ritter is a high school astronomy instructor and advisor for FirstLight Astronomy Club. You can write him at ritter@firstlightastro.com. >> Large image of Solar System >> Planets in Motion: April (680K). Requires QuickTime. Posted by Administrator at 2000.04. 2 09:43 AM \| Comments (0)
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