Year 2012 planet alignment?

Question

i do not understand why do some people answer me by another question. My question was what happen when all planets align? i dont want the planet to have all the catastropic ending. Please share some knowledge not opinion. thanks.

Answer 1

The Sun is so massive that the centre of gravity of the entire solar system is always located very close to the Sun. The Sun contains 99.86% of the mass of the entire solar system.

Most of the mass of the "rest of the Solar System" is in the planets. Most of that is in Jupiter. In fact, when we want to have a general idea of the location of the solar system's centre of gravity, we often calculate only the effect of Jupiter, as the rest of the solar system has very little additional effect. In general, the additional effects pretty well cancel out.

If all the planets were perfectly aligned on one line on one side of the sun, the additional effects would all add up and the system's centre of gravity would be at its furthest from the centre of the Sun (still, not much further out than when we calculate only Jupiter's effect).

There appears to be some kind of link between Jupiter's orbital period and the Sunspot Cycle. Maybe, Possibly, Perhaps, there could be a change in the average number of sunspots during the cycle that includes 2012. More spots? Less spots? Don't know yet.

There appears to be some kind of link between the Sun's cycles and temperature on Earth (although not enough to explain the current bout of global climate change). Therefore, there could be some subtle influence on Earth's climate (smoother changes? more extremes? Hotter? Colder? Don't know yet)

The total gravitational pull (and tidal effects) of all the planets put together will have a minor influence on Earth's orbit: our orbit is constantly changing shape under the influence of all the other planets put together. For example, in 2007, the major axis of our orbit will grow by 0.0003% which is not bad, considering that our orbit is presently a tiny bit smaller than its historical average of 1 astronomical unit.

The orbit of the Moon around Earth is affected by tidal effects. For example, when the Moon's closest and farthest point from Earth (perigee and apogee) are aligned with New and Full Moon, then the orbit becomes ever so slightly more eccentric (the difference between the major axis and the minor axis increases: the ellipse becomes more squished). This is because of the tidal effect from the Sun.

When the perigee and apogee are aligned with the first and last quarter positions, then the orbital ellipse becomes ever so slightly less squished.

In 2012, this effect will be increased an even tinier bit when the perigee-apogee line is lined up with the Sun and all planets. If we have very precise instruments, it could even be measurable.

Here an opinion: now that we know what to look for, then it is possible that these effects might be measurable (and actually measured), giving us a better idea of what share of global warming is due to outside astronomical influence and, more importantly, what share is due to influences from Earth, including our own.

The alignment of planets, on its own, cannot have any global catastrophic effect.

PS:

There is a nice applet at
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/
In the form, enter any name (for example "1 Ceres" the biggest asteroid) and click search.
It takes you to an interactive diagram of the solar system.
Use the Zoom slide to zoom out until you see Saturn and Uranus.
Set the interval to 1 year, then use the step (single arrow with a vertical bar) to move up to 2012.
There, you'll see the "alignment"

The alignment is never perfect. I like the one I get for March 22, 2012.

Note that the best line going through the planets does not go through the Sun (however, on the scale of the solar system, that is a minor thing).
More importantly, note that Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune are on one side of the Sun, while Saturn, Mars and Earth are on the other.
Therefore, the effect on the solar system's centre of gravity will be less than what I described above for a perfect alignment.

Answer 2

Nula.. the year you picked is supposed to be the end of the Mayan calendar..as the Mayans were astronomers you would suppose than an alignment would be catastrophic to end a calendar that's been running over 5000 yearts.

That said, there's planets aligning all the time in our solar system and others. What importance it seems to have is mostly what we think it has. I think the waxing and waning of the moon and sun storms have much more immediate influences on our earth, yet we humans barely pay attention to that..not to mention the degredation of the biosphere.

Answer 3

There is no special planet alignment in 2012 that I can find by using the NASA JPL solar system simulator.

You are probably thinking about the Mayan calendar that ends a major cycle on that date. Although there is a lot of buzz on the Internet that it does, it does not predict anything special for that date.

Answer 4

The planets have aligned before and nothing ever happened. I wouldn't worry about it. I'm not even sure it's a planetary alignment. There was some wives tale floating around about a galactic alignment; whatever that is

Answer 5

I really can't tell you but something is going to happen soon, I just go to google earth and see what has happen to the north and south pole the ice is almost gone. With nature in the stage that it's in who knows,the planets might align,and we might see what peopls said they was seiing all the time U.F.O'S lol or who can ever tell.

Answer 6

Nothing happens. It's an interesting day for astronomers - that's about it. There's no reason whatsoever to believe anything catastrophic is going to happen.