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When was the last/previous alignments of the solar system?

I know the next one is (apparently) 21-12-2012?
i'm trying to some research about the hopi prophecies etc............. im curious when was the la2st alignment of the galactic solar system ? and did it have any associations with being in the middle of the milky way like the 2010 theory suggests??

thanks
*******the alignments of the planets

Public Comments

1. I don't understand your question... there are many galactic solar systems in our galaxy, and what alignments are you talking about exactly?

2. 1) There is no alignment for December 2012. None. The "prophesies" regarding the Big 2012 Hoax were all invented during the summer of 2003 (or shortly thereafter).

When they created the Big 2012 Hoax, the charlatans (who had made money from their previous hoax: Planet-X) used many older hoaxes, including the one surrounding the alignment of 1982. The planetary alignment was real, however the "prophecy" that California would slip into the ocean on march 10, 1982...

2) There is no such thing as a "Galactic Alignment". The concept itself was invented for the Big 2012 Hoax. It has also been used by other charlatans (those who make prophesies regarding the "New Age").

In various hoaxes, there are three definitions of Galactic Alignment.

a) The Sun lines up with the Galactic Centre. This is impossible, as the Sun cannot pass closer than 5.5 degrees from the Galactic centre. And this is an apparent alignment only (as the Sun was, is and will continue to be 26,000 light-years away from the galactic centre).

If you care about the 5th decimal, then there was a year of "closest approach"... and you missed it by a decade.

b) The solar system crosses the Galactic plane. This does happen every 30 million years or so. We are presently 50 light-years "above" the plane and still moving away; therefore the next crossing will be in roughly 17 million years.

c) The position of the solstice crosses the Galactic equator. This is rather meaningless in terms of searches for ancient prophecies, as the Galactic equator was created (as the basis of a new coordinate system) less than a few centuries ago. In any event, the position of the solstice does cross the Galactic equator, but not in 2012.

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I've left out the "obvious" definition of "the Sun crossing the Galactic equator" because this happens every year, twice a year, around Dec. 21 and June 21. EVERY YEAR.

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An "alignment" is a very vague term. It can mean that all the planets are on the same side of a line (a diameter), so that the alignment can be "plus or minus" 90 degrees. That was the definition of the 1982 alignment and of the (almost) alignment of 2010.

There is no such alignment in 2012. (It was made up for the Big 2012 Hoax).

If you are interested in alignment of outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune), then there is a special type of alignment that could allow a "grand tour": a space probe using the gravitational assist of one planet is shot towards the next one with added energy. This is the trick used to send the Voyager spacecrafts in 1970s.

The next "grand tour" alignment of the outer planets will be just before the year 2150.

3. the planets only "align" in a very rough fashion. They don't orbit the Sun in the same plane, so it's impossible to get very many of the planets in a straight line. Nevertheless, any time they all get within about 90 degrees of each other, someone will claim they're "aligned." The last time this happened was 1982 when dire predictions were heard about how the "Jupiter effect" would lead to world-wide disaster.
Second, even if they *were* all aligned, the effect on the Earth would be miniscule. It's true that the other planets' gravity does affect the orbit of the Earth, but the effect is small, and lining up all the planets doesn't even come close to making it big enough for anyone to notice. The effect on the Earth is dominated by Jupiter and Venus anyway (Jupiter because it's massive, Venus because it's occasionally very close to us). All the other planets put together only affect us about 10% as much as those two, so the fact that they're all in the same general direction as Jupiter and Venus doesn't make much difference.
Third, even if all the planets could produce a strong gravitational effect on the Earth (which they can't, unless they find a way to increase their mass by a factor of 10--100), it wouldn't result in the "crust spinning over the magma" or some other dire effect, since their gravity would be pulling on every part of the Earth (almost) equally. The "(almost)" is because the other planets do exert tidal forces on the Earth, which means they pull on different parts of the Earth very slightly differently. However, tidal forces decrease *rapidly* with distance (as the third power), so these forces are very small: The tidal force from Venus at its closest approach to Earth is only 1/17,000th as large as the Moon's, and we seem to survive the Moon's tides well enough twice a day. If the Moon raises tides of 1 meter (three feet) where you live, Venus at its closest will raise tides of 1/20th of a millimeter, or about the thickness of a hair. The other planets have even smaller tidal effects on the Earth than Venus does. Finally, it's worth remembering that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Whilst these "alignments" may be rare in terms of a human lifetime (occurring once every few decades), they've occurred numerous times during the time that life has existed on this planet, and many, many times in the comparatively brief time that humans have been around.Thus, over the history of this planet there have been about 45 million such "alignments." The fact that we're still here to talk about it is proof enough that nothing *too* terrible happens!
Source(s):
Laz Marhenke <laz@leland.Stanford.EDU>,
Chris Marriott <chris@chrism.demon.co.uk>

4. > I know the next one is (apparently) 21-12-2012?

And how do you know this? Have you checked it out in a planetarium program? I have checked it in Starry Night, and there is _no alignment_ on 2012-12-21.

How do you define an "alignment"? How many planets? Two planets align many times during the year every year, so hardly count. How close together counts as an alignment? The best alignment in years takes place next month (Venus, Mars, Saturn) but nobody's making any catastrophic predictions. Theres also an alignment of four planets over 8 degrees in May next year, but again, nobody's making any predictions. The only things which align on 2012-12-21 are the Sun and the centre of the Milky Way, but that's off by 6.5 degrees and happens twice a year _every_ year.

So this whole alignment thing, like _everything_ to do with 2012, is smoke and mirrors: no scientific facts behind it.

I haven't researched past alignments for the reasons above: there are too many of them and they are so poorly defined.

5. I think you may be confused. This is what the 2012 conspiracy theorists want you to be, so I am not surprised. There is no such thing as a galactic solar system. There is our solar system, which is buried deep and relatively tiny within the Milky Way Galaxy. There are lots of other solar systems within our galaxy - like billions of them. And they are all "aligned" differently.

"The alignments of the planets" happen fairly frequently, although they are not really aligned very well, and it only looks that way from our position relative to them. If you go outside tonight, you can see Venus, Mars, and Saturn forming a pretty pattern close together in the western sky just after sunset. Notice that they are not "aligned" with respect to the Sun, the galaxy, or anything else. They just appear sort of in the same region of the sky relative to you as you stand there in Australia. The planets will not be aligned very well in December 2012, so I don't know what the planets have to do with it.

The alignment of the galaxy (the sun lining up with the center of the galaxy, as claimed by the 2012 whack jobs) does not align very well either. It will not happen this year, and it will not happen in 2012. The Sun's apparent position will pass within a few degrees of the galactic center in December. This happens every December - EVERY December. It's not even close to an alignment in astronomical terms.

"Being in the middle of the Milky Way" is where we are now and where we will be for ages. The galaxy is a disk that is roughly 5,000 light years thick and 80,000 light years in diameter. I do not know where the precise location of the central plane is relative to Earth. I mean, what do you base it on? The black hole at the center? The average of the mass centroid? The geometric center of the core bulge? If you define it by the location of the Sun and Earth relative to the galactic center, then you are still off by several degrees - for the next several centuries at least. And the Earth's location has nothing to do with it anyway.

I guess what I am trying to say is that if you really want to try to involve the Hopi culture in this unfortunate speculation, you should probably understand how these objects all relate to each other. You can start by looking for yourself. Go outside and look up. Where are the planets? Where is the Milky Way? Where is its center? These things are all quite easy to find, and you don't need a telescope. First hand experience is infinitely more valuable than third-hand rumors from 2012 conspiracy nuts who never bother to really look at the stars.

6. Just our perception from Earth. The Earth and the sun ALIGN on the center of the Milky Way Galaxy (which is 30,000 light years away!) EVERY YEAR on December 21st. The solar system is actually 6 degrees away from the galactic plane moving further away.

Just more FAKE facts surrounding the 2012 hoax!

http://www.2012hoax.org

7. A solar system alignment does not happen. The closest the solar system gets to alignment is a couple of degrees out, which happens every several thousand years.

This means one is not due on 21-12-2012.

Besides, nothing will happen if the solar system did align. Do the maths and work out the gravitational force exerted by all the planets in our solar system, then compare it with something like a car parked outside your house.

We are approximately 26,000 light years from the center of our galaxy, and our Sun is on a stable ellipse orbit around the center of our galaxy, which means it is always at the same distant. We are never even close to the center of out galaxy.