If you are a paranoid worrier, don't read this!

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SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 2000 . Les Mitchel wrote, "I recently read a book called '5/5/2000' meaning 5th May 2000. The basic surmise was that on that date most of the planets in our solar system would form a straight line. The gravitational forces thus exerted on Earth would cause a tilt of our planet on its axis. This would result in the Antarctic ice-cap melting, thereby raising the average sea-level around the world by 64 feet. Is there indeed such a conjunction of the planets in 2000?" Les, as often happens, there's a grain of truth to this fantastic assertion. There will be a group of planets in more or less the same direction as the sun as seen from Earth in early May, 2000. They will never form a straight line, however! According to computer simulations by NASA scientists, the planets won't make a straight line in space at any time in the foreseeable future. The planets are the ones visible to the eye alone -- the bright planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The date May 5, 2000 is significant because that's when Earth's moon will be most a part of this non-straight-line grouping of worlds in space. So something is happening! But it's nothing that hasn't happened millions of times before in the history of the solar system. I don't know how old you are, Les, but it has very definitely happened before in my adult life. In 1982, there was an even more major grouping of planets. At that time, all the major planets were involved. This time Neptune and Uranus are not involved. In 1982, people were also predicting catastrophes due to the planetary alignment. But no catastrophes occurred, and the event passed without notice. The planets align and realign often. Each alignment is a bit different -- but none to our knowledge has ever affected Earth. One last thing. Will we be able to see this grouping of planets? If we could see it, what would it look like? It would look as though the bright planets all were located in the same general area of the sky, and it would be a sight to see! But, alas, we won't see it -- because the planets will be located in the same direction as the sun in early May. You can, however, follow these three planets -- Jupiter, Saturn and Mars -- over the coming months. As they draw closer together, you can imagine the upcoming event -- NOT a straight line-up of planets and NOT expected to affect Earth -- but interesting nonetheless.

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-- jumpoff joe a.k.a. Al K. Lloyd (jumpoff@ekoweb.net), January 14, 2000

Answers

Ummm...was your warning to paraniod worriers facetious? I don't see this as being any more worrisome than a lunar eclipse.

-- Etta James (ej@umkc.edu), January 14, 2000.

These planetary alignments have happened many times before. Nothing more will come of this one than did with any of the others. Now if they discover a new earth crossing asteroid or comet which has some probability of impacting the Earth that would be interesting but planetary alignments are only of astronomical interest.

...................Alan.

The Providence Cooperative - A great source of preparedness information

http://www.providenceco-op.com

-- A.T. Hagan (athagan@netscape.net), January 14, 2000.


There still a potential for troubles to Man resulting from this allignment. Not the Earth-shifting, polar-cap-melting kind but, rather, the fact that this particualr planetary allignment occurs during the worst solar storms in our lifetime. Theories abound about how this gravitational anamoly could worsen these storms which already have the power to shut down all sorts of electronic devices. Just as Hydro Quebec - they lost power to millions of people during the last peak of solar storm activity in 1989.

-- Think It (Through@Pollies.Duh), January 14, 2000.

Oh yeah, I forgot to sign my post . . .

Paranoid & Lovin' It!

-- Think It (Through@Pollies.Duh), January 14, 2000.


Oh rats! Just when I had my hopes up. Darn! Well, that's that.

-- Richard (Astral-Acres@webtv.net), January 14, 2000.


Does that mean that central Pennsylvania land would be a good investment for beachfront property?

-- justwondering (justwondering@justwondering.com), January 14, 2000.

Just hold me Joe. I am so scared and your warm arms are so big and strong and safe......hehehe

-- anon (anon@anon.calm), January 14, 2000.

Now where have we seen reports of sudden reductions in threat numbers like this before ... LoL

Source: Space.com January 12, 2000

Asteroid Hunters Downgrade Overall Threat to Earth

By Michael Paine

Special to space.com

A handful of professional astronomers regularly search the night skies for asteroids or comets that may eventually slam into Earth. Their main quarries are objects one kilometer (about 1,000 yards) or more across -- rocks capable of severe destruction.

Until recently most scientists thought there were about 2,000 of these Near Earth Objects (NEOs). Now the astronomers who operate the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) project have come up with a lower estimate: 700.

If accurate, the new number would reduce the odds of a civilization-destroying impact in any one year from about 1 in 100,000 to about 1 in 300,000, something still more likely than being dealt a royal flush in five-card poker.

"I think the new estimates are plausible and that many colleagues are accepting them," said the Minor Planet Center's Brian Marsden, who was not involved in the research but who collates and analyses information about known asteroids and comets.

In the study, David Rabinowitz of Yale University and Eleanor Helin and her colleagues, who operate NASA's telescope in Hawaii, analyzed results for the amount of sky covered by their project. The results are described in the Jan. 13 issue of the journal Nature.

Uncertainty remains

Like all NEO estimates, the new one is an educated guess based on the amount of sky searched so far and backed up by counts of craters on the Earth, as well as on the Moon, Venus and Mars, where the scars of past impacts do not erode so quickly.

The actual number of one-kilometer NEOs could range from about 500 to 900, Rabinowitz said.

These objects are so small and distant that their size cannot be measured directly -- the task is equivalent to using a telescope to gauge the girth of ant a hundred miles away. Instead, scientists consider the brightness of the object, assuming that the larger objects will appear brighter in the sky.

The NEAT team, like most other groups, assumes a typical space rock reflects 10 percent of the sunlight that hits it. This is based mainly on the characteristics of meteorites and a few large asteroids that are well studied.

A trap with this method is that space rocks come in different shades of gray -- some reflect more sunlight than others.

In the dark

Last summer NASA scientists who operate the Deep Space 1 spacecraft were taught a lesson about dark asteroids. Their pioneering spacecraft was supposed to spot and photograph asteroid Braille which, coincidentally, was discovered by Helin and a colleague in 1992.

Braille is some 1.5-miles end to end, and the spacecraft passed within 10 miles of it -- a brilliant feat of auto-navigation.

But the elation of the scientists was dampened when no close-up pictures were beamed back to Earth. It turned out Braille was much darker than anticipated, and the imaging system of Deep Space 1 could not lock onto the asteroid. It's possible that these dark objects are more common than previously thought and they have eluded Earth-based asteroid search programs.

Other threats

Researchers study Near Earth Objects that are 1 kilometer and larger because they pose the most significant risk to the planet for global devastation. There are other threats that this study does not consider, such as long-period comets that return to the inner solar system only rarely and could only be detected a couple of years before impact.

"Comets are also a significant global hazard, and we are fortunate that they impact less frequently (presumably about 10 times less frequently," Rabinowitz said in an e-mail interview. "Smaller NEOs don't have a global effect. Though hazardous on a local level, they are not as important in the long run."

A subclass of objects, called Potentially Hazardous Asteroids, includes 200 rocks in space that are expected to pass within 5 million miles of Earth and are estimated to be more than about 600 feet across.

More sensitive equipment will be needed to detect a reasonable proportion of these objects, experts say.

"The real comfort is that we are on track to finding most of the hazardous asteroids before they find us," Rabinowitz said.

Another search effort

In the early 1990s an international group of scientists proposed the Spaceguard Survey -- a global search that would find 90 percent of the potential civilization destroyers over ten years. Current efforts fall far short, but the NEAT scientists point out that their reduced estimates mean the Spaceguard goal will be easier to reach.

Marsden, of the Minor Planet Center, agrees, but he cautions that there is much more to the task than just finding an object. Follow-up observations are needed to pin down the orbit, he says.

At the current rate of discovery -- about 50-110 per year -- it will take about two decades to find all the 1-kilometer NEOs, Rabinowitz and his colleagues calculate.

Space.com's Robert Roy Britt contributed to this report.



-- hiding in plain (sight@edge of.nowhere), January 14, 2000.


Joe,

I don't think the alignment of the planets could be considered an issue without also confirming the validity of Astrology. Quite a number of Astrologers have jumped on this, and frankly...I can see why, since their science involves the study of magnetic influences of the planets on biological organisms and such. One could argue that an alignment referred to as a "square" in astrology would have a "negative" influence, and the planets will not be squared, they will be "conjunct" on that date which is considered primarily as a "positive" influence. But considering that so many major planets will be in the sign of Taurus, I would think Taurus people would sit up and take notice.

I am by no means an expert on these matters, but I personally don't think the alignment of the planets will have any negative effects on that date.

I do agree, however, that solar storms could be the culprit since they do indeed create disturbances. But, I don't think the planets will have anything to do with the solar storms themselves. Extreme solar activity can contribute to some electrical problems and this activity is being monitored. As far as the planetary alignment being thrown into the mix, it does not seem relevant to me.

When it comes to the planetary alignment scenario, I guess I have to step out of my regular Polloomer shoes and dub myself a Polly on this issue since although the planets will be "lined up", they are still a good number of miles away from each other and also from the earth. =)

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 15, 2000.


Well, I figured that a paranoid worrier would be unable to stop himself from reading this letter. I was not surprised.

Hiding, thanks for the interesting article. Regarding:

If accurate, the new number would reduce the odds of a civilization-destroying impact in any one year from about 1 in 100,000 to about 1 in 300,000, something still more likely than being dealt a royal flush in five-card poker.

I agree, if these numbers are even close, they are about two hundred times more likely than a royal flush hand (dealt five cards only). But, intuitively at least, these numbers seem to make a "civilization destroying impact" much more likely than I believe that it is in reality. These numbers would indicate that we should have had about two to three hundred times since the one that apparently did in the dinosaurs. Since that pretty obviously didn't happen, I suspect the numbers are off.

-- jumpoff joe a.k.a. Al K. Lloyd (jumpoff@ekoweb.net), January 15, 2000.



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