On Mon, 1 Nov 1999 you wrote:

> Hello to you.
> Can you tell me of a planet alignment on May 5, 2000 that is mentioned
> as the "Menorah of the Heavens" in the book of Josephus? According to his
> report, the planets and sun will align on that particular date.

It is true that, on May 5, 2000, the planets from Mercury through Saturn,
the sun and the moon will be fairly well aligned. This sort of alignment
happens every few hundred years, and so the event is remarkable in that
respect. However, the planets are so far away from the Earth that their
combined effect is miniscule. There is a web site created by NASA with
links to pages created by professional and amateur astronomers describing
this event and showing how tiny the effect of the planets on the Earth
really is. The address is:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/alignment.html

For reference, the combined gravitational pull of all the planets combined
is about the same as the gravitational pull of a person standing a yard
away from you - that's not very strong!

Thanks for writing!
Sincerely,
Kurtis Williams

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