SEAV Softwares: Doom in May 2000?

By SEAV

This article is written in anticipation of the many ludicrous and misleading tabloid articles that will come out before May 2000. And why would there be articles prior to that period? Well, on the month of May the year 2000, an important astronomical phenomenon will take place. It's called a planetary alignment.

People have very strange ideas when they hear about planets aligning. They conjure up astronomical book pictures of planets in perfect order in a straight line going from the sun. Well, astronomical calculations show that no such event will take place now or even into the very far future.

Then what is this planetary alignment that will occur in May next year, you ask. It's not a planetary alignment in the strictest sense. For one thing, it does not involve all the planets, just the visible ones (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and of course, the earth). This particular alignment is especially nice since the alignment is in a rough line away from the earth. This means that all the visible planets can be seen at one time in just a small area in the sky (around 30°). The problem is, the sun is also on that line, preventing you from seeing all the planets at any one time. You can view some of them at dawn, just before sunrise, and the others at dusk, just after sunset.

May 5, 2000

Figure 1. Orbit Diagram and position of visible planets.

Figure 2. Position of the celestial objects in the sky.

The tabloid papers will publish "credible" articles saying that many calamities will occur in May 2000. A particular date may be mentioned, May 5 or May 19, days when the moon also joins that line (one in front of the earth and the other behind). They'll say that the gravitational influences are so strong that volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and earthquakes will rock the earth and cause unparalleled havoc.

This is all a pot full of hogwash! And I'll prove that if calamities do occur, it isn't because of planets aligning and gravitational influences.

I'll use Physics to show that the gravitational effects of the planets on earth is really negligible. First, let's take a Newtonian physics formula, that of the universal gravitational equation:
Fg = G x (m1 x m2) / (r^2)

This formula gives the force due to gravity between two objects. Following are the description of the variables:

F_G is the gravitational force in Newtons
G is the gravitational constant (6.67259 x 10¹¹ N·m²/kg²)
m₁ and m₂ are the masses, in kilograms, of the two objects
r is the distance, in meters, between the two objects

Using an astronomical software, the distances of the sun, moon, and planets from the earth are obtained. This data is for May 5, 2000, the time when gravity is supposedly the strongest.


Sun	150,907,121,000 m
Moon	367,607,000 m
Mercury	369,200,000,000 m
Venus	253,900,000,000 m
Mars	369,200,000,000 m
Jupiter	896,500,000,000 m
Saturn	1,520,000,000,000 m

The mass of the earth is 6.0 × 10²⁴ kg (6 septillion kilograms). The masses of the sun, the moon, and the planets compared to the earth's are:


Sun	332946.
Moon	0.	0203
Mercury	0.	056
Venus	0.	815
Mars	0.	1074
Jupiter	317.	892
Saturn	95.	184

By inserting the data above into the gravitational equation, the combined pull of the planets are then computed and then we shall see the results. (Data in table below is in 10³³ Newtons.)


Mercury	98,687
Venus	3,036,890
Mars	189,268
Jupiter	95,011,451
Saturn	9,896,319

Total	108,232,615

Note that the individual forces should be added as vectors to get the total. But since the planets are more or less in a straight line, we can disregard direction in the total.

Looking at the total combined pull of the visible planets, we see that it is quite impressive. Yet when we compare it to the pull of the moon and the sun, it is utterly small.


Sun	3,511,963,000,000
Moon	36,084,000,000

Total	3,548,058,000,000

The combined pull of the visible planets is only 1/33,000 times the pull of the moon and the sun! Why is that? Well, the sun's mass (which is 99.8% of all the mass in the solar system) more than compensates for its large distance, and the moon's proximity to the earth also compensates for its small mass. Jupiter and Saturn are too far away to have any noticeable effect on the earth and the other planets have mass-distance proportions that just aren't enough.

The puny tug of the planets can't even lift the earth's tides by a centimeter much less cause calamities to occur in May 2000.
See? There's really nothing to worry about.