Spectacular 5 Planet Lineup Visible This Month

MartinB writes "Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are lining up in order of distance from the Sun at the end of April, according to The BBC. They'll be visible without a telescope to observers in the Northern Hemisphere from 20th April."

Comments

The really interesting thing about this

[PhysicsGenius]

Is that they are lining up, as the submitter notes, "in order of distance from the Sun". Planetary lineups occur frequently (about once a fortnight if I remember my astronomy classes) but what happens is that the lineup will be something like "mars, neptune, jupiter, venus"--out of order, see? Lining up in order is a pretty rare occurence, kind of like partial vs total eclipses of the sun.

Re:The really interesting thing about this

[rutherford]

Additionally Ikeya-Zhang will meet the Andromeda Galaxy tomorrow (April 4th and 5th) and the moon will cover Jupiter this month (16.04)
Now I only need a better Sky. Light pollution is really a problem for all these fine objects which are near the horizon.

Re:The really interesting thing about this

[rdslater596]

Except the correct order should be Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn if they were indeed lining up in order of closest to the sun. Saturn is the furthest naked-eye visible planet.

Re:The really interesting thing about this

[shobadobs]

However, the OP was giving an example of planets that were out of order.

(out of order planets are _really_ planets that don't work when you put in the quarter and don't give your change back.

Get it? Like a soda machine!

Get it? Huh? Huh?

Oh. No. :-(

)

Re:The really interesting thing about this

[Hard_Code]

"out of order, see?"

Um, how exactly do planets line up out of order? Is it due to eccentric orbits? Otherwise it just seems illogical.

oh no!!!

[Transcendent]

the apocalypse is here!!! we're all gonna die!!!

Re:oh no!!!

[skotte]

article? heck, that was a big issue. there were small cults devoted to that day. there were many books on the topic as well.

The Day, incidentally, was May 5th, 2000. ( 5/5/00 )

here's a sample web page
http://www.revelation13.net/polar.html

here's a sample book.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail / /books/0609800671/glance/103-8192206-1714235

i'm a living data mine :)

Too early

[Anonymous Coward]

The show starts around April 18 and lasts a month. I may even try to track the planets myself by taking a few 8-sec-exposure pictures during that interval (no telescope required).

So I sincerely hope that Slashdot will run this as a main page story when it starts, but an April 3rd annoucement is just too early. Mercury is currently on the wrong side of the Sun! Give it two more weeks.

bah! i've seen this already...

[spike666]

Theres great footage of this event in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. if i had my dvd and player i'd tell you the timecode.

now i just need to round up my illuminati buddies and head off to siberia...

Re:Uh-oh...

[leucadiadude]

I think this was in that Disney movie Hercules. At a plnetary line up the Titans cage was exposed and Hades freed the Titans for his war on Mt.Olympus....

Re:Uh-oh...

[nickynicky9doors]

Brahhhhhaaaaa! What morsels these mortals be.

End of the world?

[10Ghz]

I remember seeing this "documentary" about how lining up of the planets in year 200x would cause the end of the world. Massive tidal forces would cause huge earthquakes, which would kill millions all over the world. I was pretty freaked out after I saw it. But hey, I was like 7 years old!