How to catch a glimpse of a rare phenomenon in space where FIVE planets will be in perfect alignment

The planets in our solar system never line up in a perfectly straight line as shown in the movies.

If you look at a two-dimensional representation of the planets and their orbits on a piece of paper, you might think that all the planets will eventually orbit on the same line.

In reality, the planets don’t all orbit perfectly in the same plane. Instead, they swing around in three-dimensional space on different orbits. Because of this, they will never be perfectly aligned.

The planetary alignment depends on your point of view. If three planets are in the same region of sky as seen from Earth, they are not necessarily in the same region of sky as seen from Sun.

Alignment is therefore an artifact of a point of view and nothing fundamental about the planets themselves.

Even if the planets all aligned in a perfectly straight line, it would have negligible effects on Earth.

Fictional and pseudoscientific authors like to claim that a planetary alignment would mean all the planets’ gravitational fields add up into something massive that disrupts life on Earth.

In truth, the gravitational pulls of the planets on Earth are so weak that they have no significant effect on life on Earth.

There are only two objects in the solar system with sufficient gravity to significantly affect Earth: the moon and the sun.

The sun’s gravity is strong because the sun is so massive. The moon’s gravitational pull on Earth is strong because the moon is so close.

The Sun’s gravity causes the Earth’s annual orbit and hence, combined with the Earth’s tilt, causes the seasons.

The moon’s gravity is primarily responsible for the daily ocean tides. The close alignment of the Sun and Moon affects Earth because its gravitational fields are so strong.

This partial alignment occurs at each full moon and new moon and results in particularly strong tides called “spring tides.”

The word ‘spring’ here refers to the fact that the water seems to rush up the coast every two weeks with the particularly strong tides – not that they only occur in the spring season.

Source: dr Christopher S. Baird/West Texas A&M University