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Litha
May 15th, 2002, 10:37 PM
Planets Over Stonehenge

Many of you may, or may not, have been aware of the planetary alignment occurring over heads the last couple weeks.

If you've looked into the Western Sky at sunset you may have noticed a Triangle forming. This elongated shape created by Mars (War/Action/Ambition), Saturn (Karma/Learning) and Venus (Love/Beauty/Art) eventually became an equilateral triangle on 5-May-2002, above Bethlehem. The last time this event occurred over this city was some 2000 years ago, 1-April-2 BC (that's the year 2).

Philip Perkins took a stunning photograph of this alignment as it appeared over Stonehenge.
Planets Over Stonehenge
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020509.html

Another wonderful photograph was captured by Jerry Lodriguss
Dusk of the Planets
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020429.html

Lest you think the excitement is over and you have missed it, on 10-May-2002 Mars and Venus move to within 1/3 of a degree.

If you would like more information on the Alignment, check out the following links:

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Caution-Planetary Traffic Jam Ahead!
Press Release No.: 02-10 - For Release: April 3, 2002
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/alignment_rel.html

Sky and Telescope
A Rare Dance of Planets
by Alan M. MacRobert
http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/article_572_1.asp
Day by day diary and pretty pictures to help you find everything, well if you had been looking.

SPACE.com
Rare Planet Alignment in April and May
By Joe Rao
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/planets_align_020402-1.html

Paper Plate Education
2002 Spring Planets
by Chuck Bueter
http://analyzer.depaul.edu/paperplate/2002%20Spring%20Planets.htm
This has display a graphic showing where the planets are in the Solar Plane.

Danustouch
May 16th, 2002, 10:41 AM
Thanks for these links, Litha. They were amazing photo's!

Litha
May 16th, 2002, 11:06 AM
one of these days I'm going to get a telescope of my own!

Silver Venus
May 24th, 2002, 12:51 PM
Missed it all, but thanks for the links Litha, I visited Stone Henge in January and found it all very interesting and beautiful then, youve just brought it all back to me :)

Run_With_Wolvez
May 29th, 2002, 11:20 AM
Ooh, that's so cool! I'm going to read more about this occurance and the occurance in year 2 (or whichever you said). :)