I lead stargazing classes with my city parks, and I can tell you that it's pretty much impossible to find earth in the night sky.
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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I don't know where you're searching, but the earth is usually pretty visible at the horizon.
Idk, bro, I've never seen Earth at the horizon, it's mostly just trees and houses and stuff. Do you have to be in dark skies?
He commented that right after texting his gf asking her to call his phone because he can’t find it
I can text people via sms through my cell service provider's web portal even if my phone is off.
The wondrous times we live in.
Years ago, I think I remember seeing a screenshot- could have been from Quora, where someone was asking why we haven’t sent astronauts to the sun.
I lost a pretty big chunk of my faith in humanity that day.
Just fly at night if you worry it's too hot
The sun? But that’s the hottest place on earth
It's one of your last... sounds like a threat.
Wait a minute, that's not the order I've learned. Have we been lied to about MVEMJSUNP?
you're talking about the order from the sun, but that's not necessarily how it has to appear in our sky. It's like how the stars in orion's belt are actually stupidly far from each other, and from their perspective they have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
Well, the P is silent.
Sweet syzygy, dude.
Technically two syzygies.
Woowwww... double syzygy! What does it mean?!
Aren’t they always on the plane of the elliptic though?
Yeah but you can't always see them all together.
What is the reason, is it because sometimes some of them are on the other side from the sun?
They're in orbits at different distances from the sun and so take different times to complete an orbit. Also we're closer to the sun than most, so circling faster, and further than Venus and Mercury so circling slower, so sometimes some planets appear to be going the wrong way along the ecliptic
Some planets are in resonance with others (for example orbiting 3 times for the other's 4)
So sometimes other planets are on the other side of the sun, sometimes they're on this side of the sun but the opposite side of the sky
How is that an alignment though? It’s not like MacGuyver or Lara Croft is going to have to stop some baddies from assembling ancient artefacts in a particular room to unleash arcane terrors into the world just because the planets are sort-of visible together in the sky.
I think that actually was a plot in a MacGyver TV movie I vaguely remember from the 90s.
It's an alignment because if you look up at it they're in a line. That's what alignment means, Lara Croft and ancient artifacts are optional.
The cool alignment is when they're in alignment all pointed straight at the earth, so you can't really see them all spaced out like this one.
It's a known fiction plot because while the planets do come somewhat close to lining up somewhat often (depending on how loose you want to define somewhat close, and if they also have to be all on one side of the sun), they never actually do. The planets have never actually all lined up perfectly and aren't likely to do so any time in the next 13 trillion years. A moot point since our sun will be burned out a thousand times over by then and the whole system will have fallen apart.
But only in the same sense that they always are! You just can’t see it because of your mortal limitations.
ecliptic, yes they are
Thought that was someone's desktop theme
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