Can a conjunction of the planets cause problems for the Earth?

On Sun, 8 Aug 1999 you wrote:

> like information about the planets lining up in 2000 and may causing earth
> problem maybe

Alignments of the planets are fairly common events, especially among the
inner planets of the solar system. This past May, Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn and the sun were crudely aligned, but there are no true
alignments next year, to the best of my knowledge.

Even if the planets were to line up perfectly, however, Earth would notice
no effects. Some people think that the combined gravity of the planets
might tear the Earth apart. But the gravity of all the planets combined
is very weak as felt from the Earth - the moons gravity is far, far
stronger. This is because distance reduces the force of gravity, and
every planet is very far away from the Earth - hundreds of millions of
miles, on average. In fact, you feel more of a pull of gravity by standing
next to a large concrete building then you do from the other planets.

The planets have aligned many times during the Earth's 4 1/2 billion-year
history, and we are still here. I suspect we will survive many alignments
to come!

Thanks for writing!

Sincerely,
Kurtis Williams

Back to the Ask An Astronomer page.