The following is a question being asked on Yahoo Answers. Both the questions and answers given do not reflect the view of our website.
Question:
So I’m watching these guys talk about the ‘galactic alignment’, where the Sun, Earth, and center of the galaxy will be ‘perfectly aligned’. I know it’s all BS, but I wanted to see just how much BS it is. So I fired up one of my star programs and set the date to 21Dec2012. Here’s a screenshot:

http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/1442/2012.jpg

The big white ball at the top is the Sun, and the red line through it is the ecliptic, the path the Sun will follow through the sky. The crosshair cursor near the bottom is the approximate location of Sagittarius A* (supermassive black hole, the ‘center of the galaxy’.
Now, if the Earth, Sun, and the center of the galaxy are supposedly aligned, the Sun should block out Sag A* so that it’s not visible. Obviously, it’s not even close. Angular separation at closest approach is 6.5 degrees.
And the whole ‘galactic alignment’ biz goes up in smoke right there. It’s just a bunch of charlatans speaking nonsense.

If you’re curious, the closest approach of the Sun to the center in the year 2012 is 5 days earlier, on 16Dec. There’s still 5.5 degrees of separation between them though, so nothing even close to what could be called an alignment. Plus, it’s the exact same distance that the Sun approaches to alignment *every* year, meaning there’s nothing special about 2012 at all.
For the closest approach (still 5.5 degrees) to occur on 21Dec, you have to go to the year 2200 or so.

Anyways, more ammo next time a galactic alignment discussion comes up.
oklatonola – I think you need to get your own facts straight. We’re talking about Sag A*, not Sag A (although A* is one of the 3 main components of A). A* _is_ the supermassive black hole (or as you call it, ’30 million solar black hole singularity at the center of the Milky Way galaxy’) at the center.

Quote: “Among the unusual objects believed to lie at the exact center of our Galaxy is a compact, yet extremely bright source known as Sagittarius A*. Some astronomers argue that this point-like source reveals a black hole with a mass equivalent to several million Suns.”
Reference: http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Bima/GalCntr.html

I suspect you’re one of the folks who believe this doomsday scenario and are just grasping at straws against this incontrovertible that it’s simply wrong. An alignment just won’t happen.




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