Celebration of Space - February 28, 2025
It's just not happening!
Over the past week, the calls and write-ins have started again about “The Great Planetary Alignment”. It’s astounding to me how many news sources actually publish information about this, being that it isn’t true. This is a social media hoax, just like the chain letters that went around before social media existed. It is similar to the days when we all read in our email that Mars would be the size of the Moon, but only on one night. From a perspective of astronomy, these claims don’t even make sense.
The planets move too slow in their orbits for their positions to change significantly over the course of one day. We may occasionally see an event where the Moon visually overtakes a planet, which is called an occultation, or eclipses, both of which happen over a period of less than a day. But a planet will not appear in the sky for just one day. Even Mercury, which has a fast orbital period (88 days) is still in the evening or morning sky for several days at a time. The rest of the planets are in the night sky for months at a time.
Alignments occur when objects in the Solar System orbit into a position where they form a line with the Sun. Like the new or full Moon, which ends up either between Earth and the Sun or on the opposite side of Earth than the Sun. We also see this with Inferior Conjunctions, which are when an inner planet, related to Earth’s position, orbits in between Earth and the Sun; Superior Conjunctions, which are when a planet orbits into a position on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth; and Oppositions, which are when an outer planet, in relation to Earth’s position, arrives at the opposite side of Earth than the Sun. The likelihood of all eight planets doing this at the same time is so small that if it happened even once in the entire 10 billion year lifespan of the Sun, it would be highly unlikely.
So what is happening with all this nonsense? We’ve seen some articles, more correctly, referring to these views as a parade of planets, or a planetary line up, which is when you can see some of the naked eye planets at the same time in the night sky, which is common enough that it happens every year. Note that Uranus and Neptune are not naked eye visible and will not be seen without the aid of a telescope. Earlier this year, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were visible in the night sky at the same time, not clumped together, but across the sky. Mercury joined for several days. Again, this is not an uncommon occurrence, but certainly worth stepping outside to see. As for the current time frame, the only planets we can see are Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury (for a few days). Mars, Jupiter, and Venus have been visible for months and will continue to be visible on a nightly basis for nearly three more weeks, with Jupiter and Mars sticking around until late May.
Realistically, we do have periods where the planets rise and set at times when other planets are below the horizon. But for the most part, if you stay out all night, you can see most of the naked eye planets in one night. Seeing all naked eye visible planets at the same time across the sky is pretty cool, but not as easy as it sounds, and certainly commonplace. As for this February 28, 2025 nonsense, it just isn’t happening. If the news source you read / watch / listen to promoted all of this as a rare, once in a lifetime alignment, or better yet, just reported that something was happening tonight with all the planets, then it’s time to find a new news source, because they are spreading misinformation. That’s the silver lining in all of this. Now on to actually celestial happenings of note.
Overnight Thursday-Friday, March 13-14, 2025 a total lunar eclipse is coming to the night sky over the US. Being that a lunar eclipse happens during the full Moon, this will be an actual alignment. What’s happening that is different from all other full lunar phases is that the Moon will be orbiting into Earth’s shadow, which will block direct sunlight from reaching the Moon. The reason the Moon turns red during the total eclipse period is due to the scattering of blue and green light in Earth’s atmosphere. As sunlight enters Earth’s atmosphere, larger particles in the atmosphere, like sulfur, ash, smog, ozone, and just air will cause the higher energy side of the visible spectrum (blue and some of green) to scatter and become polarized, staying in the atmosphere, while the lower energy side (red and some of green) will pass right through the atmosphere. Sunlight reaches the Moon through Earth’s atmosphere via a process called refraction. The light refracts when entering Earth’s atmosphere, and again when existing, allowing for the red and some green light to reach the Moon. March is the rainy season in New England, but we are hopeful for a fantastic night under the crimson Moon.
Learn more about our Total Lunar Eclipse event.
Over the past month, we have been hearing about a rather special asteroid, 2024 YR4. What makes this asteroid so special is that it measures up to 300 feet in diameter and had a 1 in 36 chance of impacting Earth, somewhere in northern South America, or northern Africa in December 2032. At Frosty Drew we often hear about these events, but until there is better data, and projections, we opt to not take part in all the doomsaying. Well over the past 7 days, 2024 YR4, as we expected, dropped to a 1 in 130,000 chance of impacting Earth in 2032. Though it should be noted that a lunar impact still has a pretty good possibility (1.7% chance). So what happened?
On December 27, 2024, the Chilean Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) discovered a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) with initial observations suggesting an impact probability of over 1%. This triggered the first step in planetary defense response. As different groups began to refine the orbit of the newly discovered asteroid, the probability of impact increased to a maximum of 3.1%, which placed the asteroid at a rating of 3 on the Torino scale – one of the highest ever. This, of course, was enough for the media to make a doom-sayer heyday of the asteroid, with several large media outfits running articles with pictures of continent-sized asteroids slamming into Earth.
Like all close approach scenarios, additional orbital data and refinement are needed to fully understand the threat. It should be noted that there is 230,000 miles between the Earth and the Moon, and about 33 million miles between Earth and Mars at our closest approaches. This asteroid is upwards of 300 ft in diameter. To think that OMG! WE’RE ALL GOING DIE is imminent, takes a lot of faith in garbage to get there. As usual, when additional observations were collected and the orbit further refined, it became quite clear that the asteroid is probably not going to impact Earth (again, a chance to trim the media sources that you may read who are spreading misinformation.) Over the next several months and years, the orbit will continue to be refined.
It is important to state that a 300 ft asteroid impacting Earth is not a catastrophic event to life on Earth. I mean for that you have to look no further than homo sapiens. A 300 ft asteroid will have a blast radius of about 30 miles where indirect effects could occur. Instead of running and crying about the end of the world, it would probably have been more practical to purchase plane tickets to a location close to the site of impact to catch an unforgettable view. In any case, an impact from 2024 YR4 appears to be slim-to-none. If that changes we will be sure to let you know.
