Jovian–Plutonian gravitational effect: Difference between revisions
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==Background== |
==Background== |
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Planetary Alignment On Jan 4, 2015 Will Decrease Gravity For 5 Minutes Causing Partial Weightlessness. |
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[[Patrick Moore]] (4 March 1923 – 9 December 2012) was the [[wiktionary:doyen|doyen]] of British television astronomers, boasting a long career in [[Public broadcasting|public service broadcasting]], a quick-fire manner of speech, and a number of eccentric habits, including the wearing of a [[monocle]]. A [[Second World War|wartime]] navigator in the [[Royal Air Force]]'s [[RAF Bomber Command|Bomber Command]], he was elected a Fellow of the [[Royal Astronomical Society]] in 1945 and presented [[BBC Television]]'s ''[[The Sky at Night]]'' programme from 1957 until his death. He was appointed an Officer of the [[Order of the British Empire]] in 1968. Above all, Moore had a high level of public recognition in the United Kingdom as a respected astronomer.<ref name=hicelabs>[http://www.hicelebs.com/profile/patrick_moore/biography.html Patrick Moore Biography] online at hicelebs.com (accessed 27 March 2008)</ref> |
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Strange natural occurrences are happening in the world today. But nothing more magnificent than the one you will experience on January 4, 2015. |
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According to British astronomer Patrick Moore, at exactly 9:47 PST AM on January 4th, Pluto will pass directly behind Jupiter, in relation to Earth. This rare alignment will mean that the combined gravitational force of the two planets would exert a stronger tidal pull, temporarily counteracting the Earth’s own gravity and making people virtually weightless. Moore calls this the Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational Effect. |
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Moore told scientists that they could experience the phenomenon by jumping in the air at the precise moment the alignment occurred. If they do so, he promised, they would experience a strange floating sensation. |
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Astronomers have long been aware that there would be an alignment of the planets on that date, when Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto would be on the same side of the sun, within an arc 95° wide. But now they are guaranteeing the occurrence as the gravitational effect of the other planets on the Earth’s crust is maximum even at their closest approach. |
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But don’t get too excited. If you think you’ll be able to float around your house, you’re wrong. But, if you jump in the air at 9:47 AM PST, on January 4, 2015, it should take you about 3 seconds to land back on your feet instead of the usual 0.2 seconds. |
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So, mark this date on your calendar and share it with your friends! Zero gravity day is just around the corner! |
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[[File:Hst pluto cropped.png|thumb|170px|[[Pluto]], as seen by the [[Hubble Space Telescope]].]] |
[[File:Hst pluto cropped.png|thumb|170px|[[Pluto]], as seen by the [[Hubble Space Telescope]].]] |
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Revision as of 00:47, 23 December 2014
The Jovian–Plutonian gravitational effect is a hoax phenomenon stated to cause a noticeable short-term reduction in gravity on Earth that was invented for April Fools' Day by the English astronomer Patrick Moore and broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on 1 April 1976.
Background
Planetary Alignment On Jan 4, 2015 Will Decrease Gravity For 5 Minutes Causing Partial Weightlessness.
Strange natural occurrences are happening in the world today. But nothing more magnificent than the one you will experience on January 4, 2015.
According to British astronomer Patrick Moore, at exactly 9:47 PST AM on January 4th, Pluto will pass directly behind Jupiter, in relation to Earth. This rare alignment will mean that the combined gravitational force of the two planets would exert a stronger tidal pull, temporarily counteracting the Earth’s own gravity and making people virtually weightless. Moore calls this the Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational Effect.
Moore told scientists that they could experience the phenomenon by jumping in the air at the precise moment the alignment occurred. If they do so, he promised, they would experience a strange floating sensation.
Astronomers have long been aware that there would be an alignment of the planets on that date, when Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto would be on the same side of the sun, within an arc 95° wide. But now they are guaranteeing the occurrence as the gravitational effect of the other planets on the Earth’s crust is maximum even at their closest approach.
But don’t get too excited. If you think you’ll be able to float around your house, you’re wrong. But, if you jump in the air at 9:47 AM PST, on January 4, 2015, it should take you about 3 seconds to land back on your feet instead of the usual 0.2 seconds.
So, mark this date on your calendar and share it with your friends! Zero gravity day is just around the corner!
The planet Jupiter is two and a half times as massive as all of the other planets in the Solar System combined.[1]
Pluto is so small and so remote from the Sun and the Earth that it was not discovered until 1930.[2] In 2006, the International Astronomical Union reclassified it as a dwarf planet, as it belongs to a belt of many similar small objects.[3]
Events of April 1976
On 1 April 1976, Moore stated to radio listeners that an astronomical event would take place at 9:47 a.m. that day, a conjunction of Jupiter and Pluto, which was expected to have an effect observable everywhere. As Pluto passed behind Jupiter, it would briefly cause a powerful combination of the two planets' gravitation which would noticeably decrease gravity on Earth. If listeners were to jump into the air at that exact moment, they would find they felt a floating sensation.[4][5]
Soon after 9:47 on that morning, the BBC began to receive hundreds of telephone calls from people reporting they had observed the decrease in gravity.[4] One woman who called in even stated that she and eleven friends had been sitting and had been "wafted from their chairs and orbited gently around the room".[6]
Hoax revealed
The story was quickly revealed as an April Fools' Day hoax. Martin Wainwright later wrote in The Guardian that Moore was "an ideal presenter" to carry off the hoax, with his weighty delivery having "an added air of batty enthusiasm that only added to his credibility".[6]
In 1980, Moore collaborated with Clyde Tombaugh, the man who had discovered Pluto in 1930, to publish a new book about the dwarf planet.[7]
Hoax explained
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The hoax claims that the gravitational pull of Jupiter and Pluto combined will cause one to spend a significantly longer amount of time in the air due to an increase in gravitational pull from the distant planets, however this is incorrect. Although other planets do exert a gravitational pull on humans on Earth, the amount is incredibly small.
Although Jupiter is very massive, it is also very far away. When at its closest distance to Earth of about 600 million kilometers, Jupiter has a gravitational pull of 0.00013 newtons on a person with a mass of 100 kg, according to Newton's law of gravity. This is roughly equivalent to the gravitational attraction of a compact car from half a meter away. Similarly, the gravitational pull of the dwarf planet Pluto on a person on Earth is roughly equal to that of a marble 100 meters away. Thus, the gravitational impact of the planets is far too small to be able to cause a person to weigh noticeably less, or stay in the air noticeably longer when jumping.
See also
Notes
- ^ Beeb, Reta, Jupiter: The Giant Planet (Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 2nd edition, 1996, ISBN 1-56098-685-9)
- ^ Tombaugh, Clyde W., The Search for the Ninth Planet, Pluto (Astronomical Society of the Pacific Leaflet No. 209, July 1946) reprinted in Mercury vol. 8, no. 1 (January/February 1979) pp 4-6
- ^ "IAU 2006 General Assembly: Result of the IAU Resolution votes". International Astronomical Union. 2006. Retrieved 26 January 2008.
- ^ a b "Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity -- April Fool's Day, 1976". Museum of Hoaxes. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
- ^ Novak, Asami (24 March 2008). "10 Best: April Fools' Gags (the Web Is Closing for Spring Cleaning!)". Wired.
- ^ a b Wainright, Martin (30 March 2007). "Fooling around". The Guardian.
- ^ Moore, Patrick, & Tombaugh, Clyde W., Out of the Darkness, the Planet Pluto (Harrisburg, Pa., Stackpole Books; and London, Lutterworth Press, 1980)
References
- Tombaugh, Clyde W., Pluto in The Astronomy Encyclopaedia, ed. Patrick Moore (London, M. Beazley, 1987)
External links
- sirpatrickmoore.com - official site