Crazy Planetary Alignment Birthday Idea

[sevenperforce]

Someone saw an image depicting all of the planets lined up in a row on one side of the Sun, and asked me how frequently such an alignment occurs. I wasn’t quite sure so I did a little digging. Turns out that although the planets will end up clustered within a 90° arc every few thousand years, actually getting them into anything approaching a perfectly straight line would take trillions of years.

This sparked a realization. If getting all the planets into a perfectly straight line (ignoring inclination) is vanishingly unlikely, then so is the repetition of any particular arbitrary alignment. That means that the alignment of the planets on any date in history is unique. Pick any date you like; the planets never arranged themselves in quite that way before and never will arrange themselves in that way ever again.

If you imagine a top down view of the solar system, the planets are like the hands on a clock, with each planet making a full revolution in connection with its orbital period. Of course, this clock runs counterclockwise, but that is beside the point. With eight separate “hands“, however, it is a clock that never repeats itself. I did the math, and as long as mercury is at least 15 pixels away from the “sun”, you can uniquely depict any date in history, from the start of the universe until the universe’s end.

How cool would it be if I set up a website where you could punch in your date of birth or any other date of significance and it would rotate the hands backward or forward on the clock from today’s date to show you the precise alignment of the planets on the date you chose? And then you could print it out and give it to someone as a gift or put it on a coffee mug or whatever else.

Is this as cool as it sounds in my head or am I nuts?

[Vanamonde]

I believe they have software like that. For people who believe in astrology. 

[steve9728]

It sounds like I've seen it somewhere and very cool indeed, but I can't remember where.

[kerbiloid]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

Spoiler

 

 

Olomouc

Spoiler

 

 

[NFUN]

6 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

I believe they have software like that. For people who believe in astrology. 

My final project for one of my physics classes required knowing this information and in fact the only places I could find it were astrology websites. It was pretty funny citing them

[sevenperforce]

6 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

I believe they have software like that. For people who believe in astrology. 

Yes, they do (I think they are called natal charts), but while I’ve seen these charts depicting the arrangement of the planets relative to the zodiac, I don’t think I’ve seen a depiction of the planets themselves relative to the sun. It’s always a mishmash of planets and constellations aligning, never the physical locations of the planets.

I felt like there might be an appeal to this because (a) it’s more grounded and approachable than “your conflict resolution strategy is Mars in Leo Rising with Jupiter Ascendant” and (b) it’s actually a truly unique identifier. 

[NFUN]

24 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Yes, they do (I think they are called natal charts), but while I’ve seen these charts depicting the arrangement of the planets relative to the zodiac, I don’t think I’ve seen a depiction of the planets themselves relative to the sun. It’s always a mishmash of planets and constellations aligning, never the physical locations of the planets.

I felt like there might be an appeal to this because (a) it’s more grounded and approachable than “your conflict resolution strategy is Mars in Leo Rising with Jupiter Ascendant” and (b) it’s actually a truly unique identifier. 

they do have charts of the planets themselves relative to th sun. source: I used it for my final project

Edited April 28, 2023 by NFUN

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Yes, they do (I think they are called natal charts), but while I’ve seen these charts depicting the arrangement of the planets relative to the zodiac, I don’t think I’ve seen a depiction of the planets themselves relative to the sun

Who needs the Sun, when the Earthlings are o the Earth. It's a geocentric system.

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

It’s always a mishmash of planets and constellations aligning, never the physical locations of the planets.

Physical, aligned along the ecliptics, just geocentric.

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

I think they are called natal charts

The natal ones are on someone's birth, others are on events or relations.

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

actually a truly unique identifier

The galactic center longitude. 200 mln year guarantee.

P.S.

Afaik, if the system language is English, it becomes English.

https://astrozet.net

[sevenperforce]

Sobering but somehow sweet idea: a graphic showing how far the planets moved during someone's life.

[StrandedonEarth]

Considering we’ve been considering getting a mug press to put custom images on (compatible) mugs, this sounds like a good idea to put on them.  We were brainstorming ideas, but that’s one thing that never came to mind

[sevenperforce]

2 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Considering we’ve been considering getting a mug press to put custom images on (compatible) mugs, this sounds like a good idea to put on them.  We were brainstorming ideas, but that’s one thing that never came to mind

I have a good friend whose dad passed away yesterday at just under 89 years old, so I put together this graphic as a sort of tribute.

Green marks where the planets were when he was born; yellow marks where the planets were yesterday. The dark grey lines show how much the planets changed positions during the lifetime, while the light grey indicates that the planet completed at least one full orbit. As you can see, he made it just slightly over one full orbit of Uranus and just over half a full orbit of Neptune.

[tater]

It's a cool idea. If it had a cost (for mugs, etc), there's no loss if any who are interested in astrology somehow buy them as well—their money is still green.

But push it as what it actually is, someone's planetary fingerprint (albeit one shared with anyone who shares the same DOB).

[sevenperforce]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

But push it as what it actually is, someone's planetary fingerprint (albeit one shared with anyone who shares the same DOB).

Yes, exactly, that's how I was conceptualizing it. A planetary fingerprint. I like that.

[tater]

5 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Yes, exactly, that's how I was conceptualizing it. A planetary fingerprint. I like that.

The birth to present version has a kinda fingerprint look to is as well.

The 2 color dots for initial time (DOB), and some other time is also an idea... people could get X colors (for print to order stuff like mugs, etc), more for each, maybe, where date milestones get a color. Like college graduation, wedding date, the birth of a child, etc.

[K^2]

17 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

How cool would it be if I set up a website where you could punch in your date of birth or any other date of significance and it would rotate the hands backward or forward on the clock from today’s date to show you the precise alignment of the planets on the date you chose?

Would be very easy to make a micro-site like this hosted on something like GitHub. React (or even plain HTML) for data entry, with a 2D canvas to render. Standard double-precision numerical accuracy of JS is plenty for anything within human history, so you don't have to do anything fancy for the math. Just a calendar widget, conversion to time from reference date, reference date for the planets, and their orbital periods with sufficient accuracy for the computations.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 4/28/2023 at 1:20 AM, sevenperforce said:

Someone saw an image depicting all of the planets lined up in a row on one side of the Sun, and asked me how frequently such an alignment occurs

I need to look for the date - but sometime in the mid 80s this happened. 

Some people got all Y2K about it (briefly) 

Here you go:

"... the big question is, what will happen to us on May 5 in the year 2000? Let's look at the past. In 1982, an even better alignment happened. All nine of the planets were on the same side of the Sun, scattered over some 90 degrees, in what scientists call a "Grand Alignment".

 

In 1974, the astrophysicist John Gribbin predicted in his book, "The Jupiter Effect", that when the planets lined up, the Earth would be caught in the middle of a huge gravity struggle between the Sun and the planets, especially the giant planet, Jupiter.

 

These stresses, he claimed, would change the speed of the Earth in its orbit, and shift the centre of the solar system. He warned that geological fault lines would be ripped open, causing massive earthquakes. In fact, he went far enough to predict that " in 1982, when the Moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars and with the other seven planets of the solar system, Los Angeles will be destroyed"!

 

Well, as predicted, the Grand Alignment happened, with the planets scattered over some 90 degrees. Los Angeles was not destroyed, life as we know it went on"

https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2001/11/05/94846.htm#:~:text=In 1982%2C an even better,call a "Grand Alignment".

Edited April 29, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Chemp]

On 4/28/2023 at 7:20 AM, sevenperforce said:

set up a website where you could punch in your date of birth or any other date of significance and it would rotate the hands backward or forward on the clock from today’s date to show you the precise alignment of the planets on the date you chose?

Something like this?

https://theskylive.com/3dsolarsystem

[tater]

23 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

I have a good friend whose dad passed away yesterday at just under 89 years old, so I put together this graphic as a sort of tribute.

Green marks where the planets were when he was born; yellow marks where the planets were yesterday. The dark grey lines show how much the planets changed positions during the lifetime, while the light grey indicates that the planet completed at least one full orbit. As you can see, he made it just slightly over one full orbit of Uranus and just over half a full orbit of Neptune.

Was thinking about this last night (was telling a friend who was over). The issue is that the planets will have multiple periods during a human lifetime. One way to represent this on you image above would be for each planetary year to add a grayscale %. Use 100 years, with 1% gray for each circuit as an example. So a 100 year old would get a black circle for earth, with b-day and death being 2 shades of blue dot. In the same 100 year life, Mars would have a 53% gray circle dots for B-day and death might be 2 shades of red dot. Saturn, OTOH, would only be a 3.4% gray line (~3.4 Saturnian years have passed in that 100 years). Uranian year is ~84 years.

So straight 1% per year likely won't work super well since Saturn and Uranus will be barely visible.

But that could be multiplied by some constant. Or Earth could be the gray, and others might have a color version, Uranus will only have 1+ years for anyone, Saturn would have at most ~4 (for the oldest people, ever), Jupiter 10 shades, etc.

 

[sevenperforce]

3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I need to look for the date - but sometime in the mid 80s this happened. 

"... the big question is, what will happen to us on May 5 in the year 2000? Let's look at the past. In 1982, an even better alignment happened. All nine of the planets were on the same side of the Sun, scattered over some 90 degrees, in what scientists call a "Grand Alignment".

The next Great Alignment is in the 2400s, I believe. But again, this is merely "all on one side" of the sun, more or less; it's not anywhere close to a true alignment.

Although perhaps it would get to a point that all of the planets WOULD end up in a line, in correct order, if viewed from the side.

19 minutes ago, tater said:

Was thinking about this last night (was telling a friend who was over). The issue is that the planets will have multiple periods during a human lifetime. One way to represent this on you image above would be for each planetary year to add a grayscale %. Use 100 years, with 1% gray for each circuit as an example. So a 100 year old would get a black circle for earth, with b-day and death being 2 shades of blue dot. In the same 100 year life, Mars would have a 53% gray circle dots for B-day and death might be 2 shades of red dot. Saturn, OTOH, would only be a 3.4% gray line (~3.4 Saturnian years have passed in that 100 years). Uranian year is ~84 years.

So straight 1% per year likely won't work super well since Saturn and Uranus will be barely visible.

One possibility would be to make it an outlined line, with the infill taking a particular shade. So the first time around would be a high-contrast outlined line, while the second time around and subsequent loops would start to fill in the line with contrast.

Of course Mercury would always just be solid black, you know?

3 hours ago, Chemp said:

Something like this?

https://theskylive.com/3dsolarsystem

Yep, very similar! That's super cool. I was thinking of something broadly simpler, though. More like the plain top-down view with all the planets at equally-spaced orbits. More abstract and thus more approachable.

[tater]

Just now, sevenperforce said:

Yep, very similar! That's super cool. I was thinking of something broadly simpler, though. More like the plain top-down view with all the planets at equally-spaced orbits. More abstract and thus more approachable.

Which is an Apple Watch face (I use the Moon or Earth, myself).

(stock image, not my watch or arm, lol)

 

4 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

One possibility would be to make it an outlined line, with the infill taking a particular shade. So the first time around would be a high-contrast outlined line, while the second time around and subsequent loops would start to fill in the line with contrast.

Of course Mercury would always just be solid black, you know?

Yeah, that could work.

This is a similar (animated) concept, but with the path of the entire solar system moving through the local region of the galaxy.

A stretch of this over a lifetime is also a sort of fingerprint.

[StrandedonEarth]

I was thinking along the line of color-coded orbits based on number of orbits, probably on a log scale. But it would basically amount to every planet having its own color. Perhaps by having the colors be in rainbow order, moving down the wavelengths?

Integrating that with multiple milestone "planetary fingerprints" (I also like that)  could make it even more colorful.

E: Extra challenging if trying to color code the milestones,. Hmm. Would numbered milestones be big enough on a mug? How much interest would a poster print generate, with more room for legends and such?

Edited April 29, 2023 by StrandedonEarth

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 4/29/2023 at 10:03 AM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I need to look for the date - but sometime in the mid 80s this happened. 

Some people got all Y2K about it (briefly) 

Here you go:

"... the big question is, what will happen to us on May 5 in the year 2000? Let's look at the past. In 1982, an even better alignment happened. All nine of the planets were on the same side of the Sun, scattered over some 90 degrees, in what scientists call a "Grand Alignment".

 

In 1974, the astrophysicist John Gribbin predicted in his book, "The Jupiter Effect", that when the planets lined up, the Earth would be caught in the middle of a huge gravity struggle between the Sun and the planets, especially the giant planet, Jupiter.

 

These stresses, he claimed, would change the speed of the Earth in its orbit, and shift the centre of the solar system. He warned that geological fault lines would be ripped open, causing massive earthquakes. In fact, he went far enough to predict that " in 1982, when the Moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars and with the other seven planets of the solar system, Los Angeles will be destroyed"!

 

Well, as predicted, the Grand Alignment happened, with the planets scattered over some 90 degrees. Los Angeles was not destroyed, life as we know it went on"

https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2001/11/05/94846.htm#:~:text=In 1982%2C an even better,call a "Grand Alignment".

 

Story told.

Edited May 1, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli