RE: When plants align
March 14, 2015 at 11:36 am
(This post was last modified: March 14, 2015 at 11:37 am by Jackalope.)
(March 13, 2015 at 4:39 am)Smaug Wrote: When two or more orbiting bodies align in line on the same side of a central body it's called conjunction. When two orbiting bodies are in conjunction their mutual gravitational attraction is the strongest of all other orbital configurations. Conjunctions play a major role in so-called orbital resonances. A resonance occurs when the periods of two or more orbiting bodies relate as small natural numbers. Resonant configurations lead to regular variations of gravitational interaction between the orbiting bodies which in turn leads to periodic and/or secular variations of the bodies' orbits. The variations are ralatively small but on a long run they may result in either stabilzation of orbits or in ejections or collisions of celestial bodies.
Speaking of aligned plants... it's a good point for the astrologists that eight plants aligned in line and placed not far from them affect them stronger (via gravitational pull) that eight planets aligned in a conjunction.
A conjunction of all the planets is possible though by definition it's an extremely rare ocasion. I don't know by heart whether such a thing has ever taken place or what is the period and don't bother to look it up right now. Speaking of it's effect on the Solar system, the effect is extremely minor even on a relatively long run due to the rarity of such conjunctions .
Smaug is quite correct here. Conjunctions are common and their effect is quite minor (other than as he notes, conjunctions have an effect on orbital resonances).
It's important to note a few things in addition to what he is saying. One, is that a conjunction doesn't mean the planets are all in a straight line, but rather that they're approximately in the same region of sky.
Second, that there is no common orbital plane - excluding Pluto, the other major planets' inclination ranges from about a degree to over seven degrees relative to earth, and Pluto's orbital inclination is seventeen degrees. Including other Pluto-sized trans-Neptunian objects makes the situation only worse. Even if you limited it to the naked-eye visible planets known to the ancients, the type of precise conjunction the OP seems to be alluding to seems quite unlikely to impossible.
