Not Now, Mr. Galileo
Looking across the street from World Headquarters for this past week, we've been able to see Venus on the bottom and Jupiter above to the left.It's quite a sight to see, far brighter in reality than in the photo. But it has presented Plotnik with his usual interplanetary quandry: if, in the solar batting order, Venus hits second, Earth third and Jupiter fifth, how can we be standing on Earth and see Venus, right there, and then Jupiter up THERE? Don't we have to be in between them in one way or the other?
Plotnik is pretty sure he saw Mars last night too, but above the back yard, not out in front. That makes sense. Mars hits fourth. Venus, there. Earth, here. Mars, next. But Jupiter?
Ducknik, and The Great BZWZ no doubt, will explain that it has something to do with places on orbits and relative sizes of planets, but we all know none of that is true. If Earth is here, and Venus is there, then Jupiter can't be where it is, as sure as the sun revolves around the Earth.
Not now, Mr. Galileo. We'll get to you later.
posted by DAK @ 8:19 AM
4 Comments:
If the planets were all in alignment (i.e. you could draw a straight line from the sun to Uranus/Pluto), you would not be able to see Venus and Jupiter from the same point on Earth. You'd be able to see one from SF, and a billion of your closest friends would be able to see the other from China.
Perhaps here's another way to think of it: Think of planetary orbits like a clock, with the sun being where the minute and hour hands originate from. If it's 'midnight', all of the planets are aligned. Now consider if it's 9 PM, and the Earth's orbit is on the hour hand, and Venus and Jupiter's orbits line up with the minute hand. From a few points on Earth, you'd be able to see both Venus and Jupiter.
Does that help, or is it just ridiculously confusing? :)
Love you!
So is Pluto still your DH, hitting ninth? It's cool that, even in the city, you can see all this.
I like the way you astronomers think...
Well, we should test it when you're in Japan. One night look and see what planets you see. Then eight hours later I'll look and see if i can see the same ones. If i can, this means, uh, that, see, well, if you, umm.
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