Daily News
Planet Alignment Could Crash Net
By Martin Stone, Newsbytes.
February 03, 2000
Doomsday forecasters have shifted their attention from the Millennium Bug, which proved to have little bite, to an extraterrestrial occurrence destined to take place May 5, when a cluster of planets will align with the Earth.
Some say the phenomenon has the potential of creating colossal cosmic forces which could severely impact our planet.
Occurring only once every 6,000 years or so, the rare alignment of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon could cause a magnetic surge with the potential to crash power grids, blind satellites, and seriously disrupt radio and landline communications, taking the Internet down in the process.
However, not all astronomers agree that the so-called "grand alignment" will have an effect on terra firma. According to a Canadian newspaper report this week, John Mosely, an astronomer at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, has proclaimed, "There will be no effect whatsoever. It's just complete nonsense." An astronomer at St. Mary's University in Halifax was blunter, calling the fears, "Just a load of crap."
But the same article, filed by the Canadian Press wire service and carried by Monday's Montreal Gazette newspaper, quoted Georgia-based futurist Richard Noone as saying the alignment could trigger a massive magnetic flux and a huge solar storm. "We're talking about a solar mass ejection in which a billion-tonne wave of super-hot, electrically charged gas is discharged from the Sun and crosses space like a giant tidal wave. It would crash into Earth's electromagnetic field at 620 miles a second."
As well as the communications systems wipeout, Noone predicts the cosmic event could produce a spectacular display of northern lights, which he said might be visible as far south as Florida.
Survival Center Website operator Craig Smith told Newsbytes, "Yes, the potential does exist. The big question is - but will it?" He refers to Noone's article "Are We Approaching the Abyss?" and quotes, "Past solar storms have caused incredible damage, including disruptions of radio, television, telephone, satellites, radar, power lines, power company grids and other sophisticated electronic technologies. These past solar storms will be mere blips of inconvenience to us, compared to The Storm of the Millennium coming this spring."
More of Noone's predictions can be found at http://rnoone.com .
However, Philip Plait, operator of an astronomy-focused Website, told Newsbytes, "There will be no natural ramifications whatsoever from this alignment. The gravitational and tidal effects are so puny that they will be unmeasurable. Last December's full Moon was unusually close. I did a quick calculation and showed that the gravity of that full Moon was much larger than the Moon and planets in this upcoming alignment. We weren't destroyed on Dec. 22, and we won't be in May.
"There won't be any electromagnetic effects either. The Sun is the only real contributor of these kinds of effects to the Earth. The sunspot cycle and therefore solar activity will be at a maximum this year. However, this has nothing to do with the alignment."
Plait has posted a wealth of grand alignment information on his site at http://www.badastronomy.co/bad/misc/planets.html .
Other doomsayers fear an extraordinary gravitational pull on our planet, which would wreak havoc in many ways, including causing the Earth's tilt to change, not to mention earthquakes and floods.
Many scientists anticipate a major solar disturbance this year but most insist the grand alignment will have no effect on solar storms, which occur in predictable 11-year cycles. Major storms and eruptions on the Sun's surface have been known to affect communications systems and are blamed for a province-wide blackout in Quebec in 1989.
Plait summed up the controversy by declaring, "There will be a lot of people trying to tell you something different than what I am saying here. Chances are, they're trying to sell something."
Reported by Newsbytes.com
