Three Planets Racing this Weekend

William Robinson writes "This report asks you to keep your eyes on the skies this weekend, when a rare triple-planetary alignment is going to happen. It promises a stellar show for star-gazers. Scott Young of the Manitoba Museum Planetarium says the planets in question -- Mercury, Venus and Saturn -- are all big enough to be seen without a telescope."

Astronomers NOT Astrologers

[Reverend528]

From TFA: Young describes Mercury as an "elusive planet," noting most people, astrologers included, have never seen it.

I don't see how this is so unusual, since it's an astrologer's job to look into the future, not to look into space (that would be an astronomer's job).

Re:Planet spotting

[Anonymous Coward]

Although I can't admit to being much of a stargazer, I thought Venus was visible all but year round... Isn't that how it got the whole Morning Star, Evening Star reputation?

Science for non-scientists

[jfengel]

Thing is, the conjunction isn't really all that interesting, scientifically. It's interesting mostly because it's rare, and it's a way to get the vigorously nonscientific to actually watch the planets move across the sky. Go out on two successive nights and you can watch them move relative to each other.

No biggie for your college-educated, Slashdot-reading brain, but a lot of people are bored stiff by science. Turn on Jeopardy some day and watch as the board clears of every category except Science. Not always, but too often.

There's an awful lot of people who don't really get how the planetary orbits work, and probably DO think that they would collide. I bet you know at least some of them. Take them out and show them the conjunction. Take them out on successive nights and describe how we can figure out the heliocentric universe from the observations.

Re:Disharmonious Noncordance

[Adelbert]

I love how "Some people are idiots. Other people are not" gets modded "3, Informative".

I have some others: some people are conservative, others are not. Some people eat meat, others do not. Some people read Slashdot, others have a social life.

Come on mod points. I'm ready for you!

Seriously though, if you haven't seen Bad Astronomy, do. Go to it. It rocks.

Re:Science for non-scientists

[rxmd]

Take them out and show them the conjunction. Take them out on successive nights and describe how we can figure out the heliocentric universe from the observations.

The funny thing is by the same "taking someone out and showing them", you can explain geocentric or sphere-based universes to them just as well, and they would believe it, too. And if anything remotely bad happened this weekend, they'd probably be gullible enough to believe it's because of the planets.