The planetary alignments.

he alignment of planets, is the fact that the planets are all aligned with respect to the Sun. We must, on the other hand, not confuse this with what astrologers call a conjunction of planets. A conjunction of planets is a phenomenon that we find very often in astrology, it's where two or more planets look like occupying the same position in the sky. It's a deceptive phenomenon, because the planets are actually millions of kilometers away from each other. An alignment, on the other hand, is a rather rare phenomenon. Because it's sometimes, that some planets are in the same sector towards the Sun. A major alignment therefore, is where the most large planets were all in the same sector and the planets Venus and Earth at the opposite side of the Sun. Alignments, where the three large ones, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter, are on one side of the Sun and the planets Venus and Earth on the other, are quite irregular. It should be clear that with different times of orbits and since none of these planets have an orbital time with round numbers, that the dates of alignment should be fairly rare and very irregular.

We know that the solar system is not only full of planets and mini-planets, but has also a large number of that what we call asteroids. Astronomers have so far identified several tens of thousands of these stones, whose sizes are varying between that of a house up to several times the size of a large city like Paris. Most of them are only numbered, the older ones, on the other hand, have received a name. One of these names is for example that of “Adonis”, an asteroid that comes regularly brush the Earth's orbit. These rocks thus, which we call asteroids, have for the most a highly asymmetric and elliptical orbit. These types of orbits, lead asteroids sometimes dangerously close to Earth, as was the case recently. Some orbits even intersect the Earth's orbit and it's a matter of time that one will crash one nice sunny day on Earth. The orbits of these asteroids are not only highly asymmetric and elliptical, but also very unstable and it takes little for them to change their path with all the consequences that could happen! It should not take much fantasy to imagine that, in a condition such as a rare alignment of planets, an asteroid approaching already too close the Earth, would end up by falling due to such a alignment. We can take the example of such an alignment that took place in the year 9716 BC. There, three large planets Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter were all three in the sector of August, while the planet Venus and Earth were in the area of February. The combination of gravity would have been enough to deflect an asteroid from its ordinary orbit to finish up crashing on the Earth, as shown. The illustration shows two examples of orbits ('A' and 'B') and how these orbits could have been modified so that the asteroid or comet would crash onto the Earth.   

Mr Otto H Muck had mentioned in his book that the asteroid that fell on Earth, would have belonged to a group of asteroids from which “Adonis” is also member. “Adonis” is one of the first asteroids, brushing the Earth's orbit, of having been observed. It was discovered by Eugène Delporte in 1936 and was named Adonis, as the young and beautiful hunter and lover of the goddess Aphrodite in Greek mythology. The asteroid is, according to experts, 1 km in diameter and has an orbit of approximately two and a half years. This asteroid comes in fact quite regularly near the Earth and it will pass during this century no fewer than six times less than thirty million kilometers from Earth. The number of asteroids known at present is well beyond the hundred thousand, but they are mostly small items.

There is little chance that there still exists today among asteroids an object large enough to cause the same damage as the one that sunk Atlantis. This does, however, not exclude that such an object existed in the past. First, even if we say that an asteroid of this size does not exist, we may also say that there is more such an object. Because it should be clear that, once fallen, it exists no more. Another thing that we should not lose sight of, is that in the area outside of Pluto, called the “Kuiper Belt”, contains millions of rocks of all sizes. We see most of them them as comets, which have, as the asteroids do, an elliptical and very unstable orbit. It's precisely this instability and the fact that we don't know most of them, that make these items very dangerous. These objects, which we call comets, therefore, can arise anywhere in a very short time, as we saw with the Shoemacher-Levy comet, which crashed on Jupiter. It's precisely in this area where we find these objects that may have the size and speed needed of having caused the disappearance of Atlantis.

Even if we are talking about asteroids in this book, the object could have been a comet. Especially if we consider that comets approaching the area where the Earth is with a speed much higher than most of asteroids, which increases considerably the degree of danger. The most famous comet is “Halley”, who returns every seventy-nine years, but there are others that have much longer orbits, some might even exceed the thousands of years. Then the greatest danger of these comets is that it leaves very little time between the time of detection and the calculation of the orbit. If we discover some day another comet, whose trajectory is such that it would crash on Earth, the time between detection of it and the calculation of its orbit won't leave enough time to do something. We can remind ourselves about this comet Shoemacher-Levy, again there was very little time between it's was discovery and when it went to crash into Jupiter. Well, this time it was Jupiter who saw the crashing those stones¹ on it, but it could have been the Earth. It's likely that such a scenario is at the root of the disappearance of Atlantis.

To return to the possible importance of an alignment of planets, is that this changes significantly the location from which a celestial object will be captured by Earth's gravity. It's sufficient that an alignment places all the big planets and the Sun on one side of the Earth so that the combination of gravity of them increases the distance from which other celestial objects will be captured when they get a little too close to the Earth.

One scenario is that such an object that came at the time of Atlantis regularly near the Earth, as the asteroid “Adonis” does for example, saw its orbit perturbed by an alignment of planets. Such a condition could have altered the orbit so that a collision with the Earth would have become inevitable.

Most asteroids have a very eccentric and elliptical orbit, as the illustration shows, unlike most of the planets, which have instead circular or almost circular orbits. We can see that some of them, regularly cross the orbits of Earth, Mars and even the orbit of Venus. Mr Otto H Muck felt that the disappearance of Atlantis was caused by a companion of one of the most asteroids known to date, “Eros” (discovered in 1898), “Alinda” (1918), “Ganymede” (1924), “Amor” (1932), “Apollo” (1934), “Adonis” (1936), “Hermes” (1937). It does not say if it was a companion of one of these asteroids and we cannot exclude the existence in the past of such an asteroid large enough to have been behind the disappearance of Atlantis. But that what does not support this theory, is the fact that most asteroids of the “Apollo” group, to which also belongs our “Adonis”, certainly have sizes large enough to cause a major disaster, but not sufficient to have moved the poles by ten degrees or more. What is certain, even if the asteroid had existed, it doesn't now. Then it's equally as certain that there was no companion of the same size, which could act as a silent witness.

The following table shows the dates, ranging from 5'228 BC up to 15'891 BC, representing the alignment of planets. The angles were calculated relative to the January first, 2000; 00 hours 00.

Some dates of alignment:

The dates above are only a small sample: there are other dates before and after. This list is used primarily to demonstrate that the alignments of planets are very irregular. The numbers represent the angle in degrees with respect to the position of Earth at January the first, 00 hours 00. If we remove the influence of the planet Mars, because its mass is only eleven percent as that of Earth, we find twice as many dates. But what is striking is that there were so many line-ups around the date mentioned by Plato and the date mentioned in the zodiac of Denderah. To have as many clues on the same period of time, is nevertheless quite striking, even a little too much, to be a pure coincidence.

We must, before answering the question, “Why such an alignment is important,” realize us that space is not empty and that weightlessness does not exist. What we call weightlessness of those in space, is actually a for ever free fall, as we do not fall on Earth, but around it. Remember that the true gravity decreases to the square of the distance, but will never be zero. What happens with the objects and people who revolve around the Earth is that the gravity of the Earth and the centrifugal force cancel. In space reign thus the same laws as on Earth; those of the strongest. We therefore find around the earth areas where the objects will be attracted by the gravitational force in the direction of the combination of this force. It's obvious that near the Earth, its gravitational force will remain dominant. On the other hand, away from Earth, its gravitational force decreases and the other planets and the sun beginning to have their words to say. There is in this way an area around the Earth where any objects will remain prisoner of the gravitational force of Earth. Such an object, which comes too close to the Earth, could be captured if its speed is insufficient to escape the gravitational force of Earth. An object captured by the Earth's gravitational force will start to describe an orbit around the Earth. But it may be that such an orbit could not be done or remains unstable and that the path leads over time to a collision course with Earth, with all its consequences.

An alignment of the planets is thus much more important than we could initially imagine. Even if these planets are only very small peaks in the night sky, their influence is quite different. Then the opposite of what we could believe, the planet Mars has a very small influence on the whole. The mass of Mars is only eleven percent of that of Earth. It's obvious that a planet with a mass as small and as far from Earth could not have a great influence. The four large ones and especially the planet Jupiter, combine together a mass that is four hundred times that of Earth. Even if their influence is decreasing to the square of the distance and even though these planets are on the opposite side of the solar system, their influence on objects in orbit is far greater the the one of Earth. During this alignment, the gravitational force that Earth exerts on certain objects near its orbit, could be multiplied by nine. This force is, at distances of one to ten million kilometers, very small in relation to the Sun, but not negligible. It's probably large enough to divert, or have diverted an asteroid or comet from its normal orbit, making a collision with Earth inevitable.

These events are, if we look at the curve of the Earth's average temperature, not so rare as some want us to believe. From these curves, especially those of the period of between ten thousand years and fifty thousand years before Christ, such an event might have happened roughly every ten to twenty thousand years.