Given sufficiently clear and dark skies, one can avail oneself of a rare treat in the heavens tonight when six planets will appear to be in
alignment. Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Venus and Saturn all visible, mostly to the unaided eye or with the help of a good pair of binoculars, not actually queued up but along the elliptical disk of the Solar System and happen to be on the same same side of the Sun as us, not in a straight line as in the case of opposition or eclipse but as a great arc as their orbits are only inclined by a few degrees.
Time and Date had been a go-to source for me for calculating duration and day-count in between two dates but failed to appreciate that it also
features a real-time planetarium based on one’s location as a tool to anticipate the rise of the worlds. If you can’t make this one, you get a second chance on the last day of February with Mercury joining in. Coming from the title from the Greek ฯฯ
ฮถฯ
ฮณฮฏฮฑ or yoking together, this apparent astronomical union poses no threat to the Earth with a supposed collective gravitational tug (actual oppositions of the inner planets occur about every forty years and have no deleterious effects), as rumoured now and back in March of 1982 when an invisible Pluto made the count that would cause greater incidents of seismic activity or increase pressure on the Sun and result in sunspots and solar flares, with (for those counting) the next such grand lineup, albeit staggered, scheduled for 19 May 2161.
seven years ago: a minister of loneliness plus Project Crested Ice (1968)
eight years ago: Trump’s inaugural speech was not lifted from the Bee-Movie though it seemed plausible, more on the Europe right-wing plus speculation about a 2020 Zuckerberg candidacy
nine years ago: telephone booths as private raves plus more rogue exoplanets discovered
ten years ago: threat-com levels raised plus artist Rob Gonsalves