Clickbait all over the media

Whatsapp University, all major and minor media houses, print & electronic are abuzz with the news of ‘Planetary Alignment 2025’. Reading the posts, its quite wonderful to imagine all the planets lined up in the sky.

Most of these news items point out gloriously that this event details is courtesy of NASA, but while quoting NASA in the news item, crucial lines are carefully left out to make the celestial event more glamorous, news worthy and turn it into a ‘Click Bait’.

Here’s what NASA page actually says – QUOTE

In January, you’ll have the opportunity to take in four bright planets in a single, sweeping view. All month after dark, you’ll find Venus and Saturn in the southwest for the first couple of hours, while Jupiter shines brightly high overhead, and Mars rises in the east. Uranus and Neptune are there too, technically, but they don’t appear as “bright planets.” These multi-planet viewing opportunities aren’t super rare, but they don’t happen every year, so it’s worth checking it out.

Now, these events are sometimes called “alignments” of the planets, and while it’s true that they will appear more or less along a line across the sky, THAT’S WHAT PLANETS ALWAYS DO. That line is called the ecliptic, and it represents the plane of the solar system in which the planets orbit around the Sun. This is, incidentally, why we sometimes observe planets appearing to approach closely to each other on the sky, as we view them along a line while they careen around the cosmic racetrack.

UNQUOTE

All these clickbaits give us the opportunity to organise another event at our MANESAR ASTRO FACILITY. It’s a Planet Parade evening. All the planets of the Solar System will be visible in just a matter of two to three hours.

We are organising an observation on the evening of Sunday 26th January. Several large telescopes will be lined up to observe all the planets in this short duration.

All are welcome to this early evening observation. We will be happy if you spread the word of this event in your circles.

The observation starts at 6 pm, don’t be late or you will miss the early evening planets.

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