Astrogc

At astroGC, we are proud to enhance our commitment to the environment by introducing a new hybrid van. This technology is particularly important because when descending from observation points, this vehicle charges its batteries instead of heating the brake pads. Upon reaching sea level, the batteries gain an additional 15 km of range. In addition, the van improves passenger comfort with adjustable air conditioning in the rear seats, among other features.

The false alignment of planets in January and February 2025.

What will happen in the sky on January-February 2025?

The short and simple answer is: absolutely nothing special.

No. The planets will not be ‘aligned’ at all, they will be in their usual position. At the beginning of the night in Jan-Feb 2025, we will have Venus and Saturn quite low to the West. They are accompanied by Neptune although totally invisible to the naked eye. Almost at the zenith, we will have Uranus which can be very faintly seen if the sky is spectacularly clear and without any light pollution. A little further East, Jupiter will be perfectly visible, and Mars ends the ride to the East, reddish.

The planets will be in an arc of a circle of almost 180 degrees from West to East. As the planets always are when they are on the celestial vault, that is, when they are above the horizon. This is because the planets are in the ecliptic plane of the solar system. They have been that way for about 4.6 billion years. It's nothing to get excited these 2 month.

The only thing that is perhaps noteworthy is that 6 of the 7 planets will be in the sky. But they have been like this for a month and will be like this for another month or so. Overall, the probability of this happening on any given night is 6.25% (I put the calculation below). This is the probability of having been born in the first two days of the month, or of getting 4 heads when flipping a coin. I insist: it is not that much.

So why do we read in the press and on social media that a major astronomical event will take place on 01-02 2025? Because even the ‘serious’ press has gone adrift and is forced to publish misleadingly sensational content if it does not want to disappear under the rubble of social media.

The calculation. A planet has a 50% chance of being in the 180 degrees of the celestial vault, out of the total 360. For the 7 planets (excluding the earth), we have a total of 2^7 equiprobable situations. Of these, there are exactly 1+7=8 situations in which there is at most one planet that is not in the dome. The 1 corresponds to all of them being in the dome and the 7 corresponds to each planet being excepted respectively. (1+7) / 2^7 = 0.0625.