t would probably be a little notice astronomical event were it not for the growing hype, pop-culture fascination with Doomsday and mystical prophecy, and names like Nostradamus and Richard Noone.

   On May 3rd, 4th and 5th, the five brightest planets of our solar system spread out across the sky in an arc about 27-degrees wide. The Moon lingers nearby, and over the next several days Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn do an orbital dance which on May 17 brings them within a 19.5 - degree slice of the heavens. Astronomers (and, for less scientific reasons, astrologers) notice this sort of thing. It is a somewhat unusual occurrence; a similar gathering took place on February 5, 1962 when the five planets covered 18.8 - degrees of sky. It is likely to happen again on September 8, 2040 when the planets appear within an area only 8.3 - degrees wide.

   This time, however, things are different. Expect a rapid surge in doomsday predictions in the coming weeks, as May 5 barrels down on us like a calendric freight train headed our way. We are likely to hear all manner of claims made, including the prediction that "the planets will be lined up on May 5," and that it is a clear omen of an apocalypse. There are likely to be dire predictions of earthquakes and other calamitous events, as well as references to the prophecies of Nostradamus and the apocalyptic and imaginative writings of Richard Noone, author of "5/5/2000 Ice: The Ultimate Disaster."

   Noone's book has been a steady-seller especially in new age circles. "5/5/2000 Ice" is actually a revised edition of a 1982 publication, and ties together a potpourri of themes including the "mystery" of the pyramids at Giza, the Sphinx as well as some poorly informed claims about physics and astronomy. In a nutshell: Noone predicts that on May 5, 2000, the Sun and five classical planets will align and exert unusual gravitational "energy" forces on the Earth. The ice at the South Police will "tilt" the planet's axis, releasing waves water and debris to sweep across the Earth. The catastrophe is sure to on the scale of the Noachian Flood.

   If this sounds a bit familiar, it is probably due to a similar wave of last-days fever that occurred in 1982. That was the year of the so-called "Jupiter Effect," and the title of a book first published in 1974 by astronomers John Gribben and Stephen Plagemann. The authors proposed a bizarre chain of events, and predicted that when planets of the solar system aligned on one side of the sun, tidal forces would create a cascading effect including solar flares and malefic events on the earth. Radio communications would be disrupted, along with rainfall and temperature patterns. "A salient feature of the Jupiter Effect was that it was promoted by scientists, and this gave it extra validity," noted Griffith Observatory astronomer John Mosley.

   The book was soon being mentioned in the mainstream press, and of course found its way into the tabloids. Predictions that the Jupiter Effect would trigger earthquakes led to minor panics throughout California. The San Diego Vista Press reported that planetariums were being inundated with calls from citizens asking if they should move away to safer ground.

   Some religious fundamentalists saw the Jupiter Effect as part of a larger tapestry of eschatological events. A Christian sect in the Philippines built a maze of padded cubicles, and manufactured padded suits so that their members could presumably survived the disruptions.

   Fueling the hysteria was a 1981 movie about Nostradamus (Michel de Notredame, 1503-1566), "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow," narrated by an avuncular Orson Welles. Nostradamus penned a series of enigmatic "Quatrains" or verses which, if magician and author James Randi is correct, were likely coded commentaries and observations about his own time. The Quatrains, though, have been embraced as remarkably uncanny predictions about the future by a prophet with supernatural powers. Different versions of Nostradamus's prophecies circulate, of course, and they have been interpreted to describe numerous events throughout human history.

   "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow" suggested that according to the visions of Nostradamus (as interpreted by a small legion of psychics, astrologers and likely film writers), earthquakes would ravage Los Angeles and San Francisco in May, 1988. Mosley notes that this particular prognostication was the result of creatively blending two lines of one Quatrain with two lines from another. Planetary alignment was not part of this doomsday scenario, but the heavens presumably foretold this event due to other astrological configurations. The panic of '88 also fed off of other events, such as the August, 1987 Harmonic Convergence with its colorful if ambiguous references to "energy vortexes" and the conjunction of mercury, Venus and Mars. The Convergence threw in plenty of references to ancient Mayan prophecies, flying saucers and other new age detritus as well.

   There is, in fact, somewhat of an alignment of planets around May 5, 2000 although most astronomers describe this event to be more of a loose grouping. The smallest geocentric spread in the longitude of the five classical planets, along with the sun, really doesn't occur until May 17. Any doomsday predictions which do not come true on May 5 automatically have a 12-day grace period.

RESOURCES FOR LEARNING MORE...

SKY & TELESCOPE MAGAZINE ASTRONOMY MAGAZINE EARTH AND SKY CENTER FOR MILLENNIAL STUDIES Countdown to the Millennium: Last Tango on Planet Earth? (AMERICAN ATHEIST MAGAZINE) Prophecy Failed: From the Great Disappointment to Apocalypse Ranch (AMERICAN ATHEIST MAGAZINE) Millennium Foolishness (AMERICAN ATHEIST MAGAZINE) Social Psychopathology of End-Times Faith (AMERICAN ATHEIST MAGAZINE) Book Reviews of Current Literature on Millennialist Belief (AMERICAN ATHEIST MAGAZINE) The Millennium Is Coming! Cosmic Disaster In 2000 or Another Failed Prophecy? by John Mosley The May 5, 2000 Planetary Alignment And Its Destreuctive Potential Truman Collins MILLENNIUM BUZZ: The Time is Near Flashline, 12/31/99)

   Is it the end of the world? Will the planets, adding their gravitational effect to that of the Sun, manage to trigger a series of calamitous events on earth? Will a buildup of ice at the South Poll somehow cause the Earth to "tip" over?

   ¶    The planets will not "be in line" or "lined up" on May 5, despite the flashy cover of Richard Noone's book. Nor were they aligned in 1982. Even if they were, this would add little gravitational tug to the earth.

   These planets are indeed massive bodies, and so is the Sun. Scientists can calculate the degree of tidal force that these solar system denizens will exert on the Earth, though, and it is actually very little. The planets and Sun are far away, and gravitational attraction decreases substantially with distance -- demonstrated best by Newton's inverse square law. Gravitational attraction is not "magnified" when planets are in alignment, or near alignment. Mosley noted, "If all of the planets were to align perfectly, their gravity would raise the ocean tides by one twenty-fifth of a millimeter. Clearly the contribution of the planets is entirely negligible, and it makes no difference to the earth whether they are aligned or not..."

   So, if you assign the Sun an average gravitational "rating" of 1.0, mighty Jupiter rates only 0.0000131. The Moon is much more of an attractor at 2.1, in part because it is relatively close to the Earth. It accounts for the lion's share of attraction, and is responsible for the tidal variations in our oceans. "A book you are holding in your hand exerts a billion times as much tidal force as the planet Mars when Mars is at it closest," notes Mosley.

   We can measure tidal stresses caused the Moon-Earth configuration, but their relationship with earthquakes and slip-fault activity is less clear. One study looked at planetary alignments since 1000 A.D. and concluded, "It appears that such an arrangement of planetary orbital positions has no effect on the triggering of earthquakes..."

   ¶    Will the Earth "tip over" due to an accumulation of ice at the poll? Geologists suggest that ice formation may be actually decreasing; but even if this were not the case, the "tip over" scenario assumes that the ice-heavy poll would swing toward some other attractor -- much like placing a weight on a spinning globe and allowing it to tip toward the Earth and gravity. People may also confuse this prediction with the fact that scientist have measured numerous reversals in our planet's north-south polarity.

   ¶    Noone's book is a romp through the Byzantine corridors of new age, pseudoscience and apocalyptic beliefs. Its rambling discourse flows almost seamlessly from discussion on the Ark of the Covenant, astrology, Atlantis and the Book of Mormon to that fountainhead of speculation, the Great Pyramid. The May 5 date is supposed encoded in the dimensions of the Pyramid. Other writers such as Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900), Astronomer Royal for Scotland and author of "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," drew similar inspiration from this granddaddy of Egyptian monuments, and a whole religious belief system known as British-Israelism arose, and preached the predictive significance of the Giza edifice.

   May 5 also falls neatly within the window of opportunity many millenarians and religious apocalyptics have constructed for their numerous and varied "End Times" prophecies. We still debate whether the "new" millennium began on January 1, 2000, or whether next New Year's Eve may be the "real" start of the next epoch. It is all "arbitrary but precise," of course, but for some new age and religious apocalyptics, the new millennium is a significant eschatological event. Natural disasters, planetary alignments, wars, famines, and political crises all contribute to a semiotically charged environment.

   It is doubtful that any of the events predicted by Noone, or excruciatingly yanked from the enigmatic verses of Nostradamus or Old Testament prophets, are likely to come to fruition. The World -- pretty much as we know it -- will probably be around on May 6, 2000. Calamitous events may occur, but not from the planetary alignments. Missiles with nuclear warheads could fly over the India-Pakistan border, or Russian Typhoon-class submarines might unleash their deadly cargo in an exchange with American ICBM platforms. All of this, while horrifying, has become somewhat passe, however. Sunday night's live black-and-white broadcast of "Fail Safe," a 1961 nuclear war thriller, was almost quaint in its antiquity. Biblical or new age prophecies are more colorful, with the villain of human frailty being replaced by avenging angels, a vindictive antichrist, or aliens in UFOs.

   We know for certain that all predictions about TEOTWAWKI -- "The End Of The World As We Know It" -- have been wrong, and there have been hundreds and thousands of them. Jesus did not arrive at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem last New Year's Eve as some fundamentalist Christians had hoped. Nor did He come in the middle of the nineteenth century when William Miller (1782-1849) predicted the Second Coming for three distinct dates. Even for the first generation of Christians, the messiah did not return thus forcing church fathers like Augustine to condemn the occasional heresy of millenarianism and defer the predictions about the final judgment.

   While much Christian religious prophecy draws on sacred texts such as Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation, contemporary predictions of doomsday incorporate a cafeteria-style selection of elements. One is never quite sure if Jesus won't be arriving in the Mother Ship, as foretold by the Mayan calendar. Postmodernist fortune telling freely mixes and fuses doctrines, themes and teachings from a staggery array of prophetic sources. The Aum Shinryo "Supreme Truth" sect in Japan which was linked to the 1995 Sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subway, melded Christian, Buddhist and new age beliefs into an authoritarian and prophetic synchronistic philosophy.

   This "failure of prophecy," though, does not quench the thirst many have for prophetic excitement. Fears of apocalypse are often linked to periods of disruption in the fabric of everyday life, and can reflect economic, social or other stresses within a community. Failed predictions, though, rarely jolt believers out of their sense of apocalyptic time. Prophecy is merely reinterpreted. The Millerite movement, for instance, morphed into the Seventh-Day Adventist church, and provided prophetic imagery for other groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses and, decades later, the Branch Davidians.

   Perhaps the final irony about May 5, though, is that this unusual grouping of planets will not be visible to night observers on Earth. The five classical planets are on the opposite side of the Sun, lost in its glare. It is far from a "perfect alignment." The night before, the annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower is expected to peak, as dust and other small particles emitted from the orbit of Halley's Comet plunge into the Earth's atmosphere and burn up. Once, apparitions of comets and even spectacular meteor storms triggered predictions of ominous events, but we have a better understanding of what is going on today. An unusual number of Eta Aquarid meteors -- about 15 per hour are expected -- could contribute to the excitement over May 5.

   The 5/5/2000 prophecy though is likely to run its course. There may be some true believers holding on until May 17, but by then the elements of this story will be rearranged, and take on a life of their own. Nostradamus, Daniel, Revelation, maybe the Mayan or Aztec calendars, or the dimensions of the Great Pyramid will be plucked out of that date, and rearranged like so many letters in a game of doomsday scrabble. Sooner or later, a new date will be picked for TEOTWAWKI.

   The planets, Moon and Sun will there too, ready to play role in a new drama foretelling the End of the World.

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