Can the sun and planets line up across the solar system and cause disaster here on Earth?
For centuries disaster and calamity have been foretold whenever the planets of our solar system align. In the last few decades these ideas have found their way into print in books (making their authors good money) through predictions about the grave consequences of such an event. The book The Jupiter Effect predicted that California would be hit by major earthquakes set off by an 1982 alignment. Almost two decades later 5/5/2000: Ice, The Ultimate Disaster said that an alignment in May of 2000 would unleash increased solar activity, starting a chain of events that would cause the Earth’s crust to slide and poles to shift. Many of these theories suggest that the tidal forces from these grand alignments can cause earthquakes, floods and disasters of all sorts. What does science tell us about these predictions? Can we associate past alignments with catastrophes? Should we expect disasters from future alignments? First, let’s define the term alignment. An alignment of planets and the sun,
