Quote:
Originally Posted by tofu
Welcome to the forum James.
I just hope my ipod will still work after the EM field of my ears is shifted. 
Seriously though, there have been other planetary alignments. Remember Voyager 1 and 2? It was possible for those probes to visit all the outer planets because just such an alignment occurred. But the Earth's magnetic field was unaffected. There were no tidal waves, no earthquakes, no volcanoes. |
This idea that planetary alignments can have any effect at all on earth seems to stem from some people's erroneous view that whenall planets are "lined up" they are somehow CLOSE TO earth.
I have seen some examples of how far the planets are apart with a beachball for the sun, a pea (or was it a large spec of dust?) for earth, an orange for Jupiter, etc... etc...
When you get people to stand at opposite ends of the room to show the orbits of Mercury and Venus, then earth is down the hall and out the door, Jupiter is down the street and Pluto at the far end of the next block (at least!) the sheer scale of the solar system starts to become apparent to them. When you show that the nearest star is across the other side of the continent (or from us in the UK it would be approximately in New York) it starts to show how BIG space is.
Then show how you can hardly show the moon's orbit on this scale, and that the moon's orbit VARIANCE causes maybe 1000 times the influence of the planets (anyone know??) then this helps to show how insignificant any influence from any other planetary body actually is. Of course the moon is influencing the tides (and earth itself) TWICE A DAY, and orbiting the earth every 28.25 (ish) days. The moons orbit being slightly eliptical means this influence varies by FAR MORE than any planetary effect AND MUCH MORE REGULARLY.
I think that's the gist of it. I'm sure I will be put right by someone if I have something wrong.
