Talk:Syzygy (astronomy)

IPA

An IPA transcription would be great for this, if anyone knows how to pronounce it! -- Cowplopmorris^Talk_Contribs 14:45, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I added to the article a hatnote to the disambiguation page for syzygy which gives the IPA pronunciation. Do you think this is a good solution? --TimL (talk) 00:13, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Ya i think thats a good solution. Good work.MilkStraw532 (talk) 00:14, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. Feel free to renominate when data is available that shows there is a primary topic. Actual read activity for this month shows maybe a majority which is not sufficient for showing we have a primary topic. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:36, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

• Syzygy (astronomy) → Syzygy
• Syzygy → Syzygy (disambiguation)

– Syzygy in the astronomical sense is much more common than any other sense. You may do a Google search or use the "What links here" tool for the other senses for evidence. TimL (talk) 00:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. It might be a little tricky to sort out the edit histories; I apologize if I made a mess of things! Melchoir (talk) 05:25, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support sounds reasonable. 65.94.77.11 (talk) 05:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose; way too many other uses, particularly in poetry, to assume that this one is primary. "What links here" can often be misleading. Powers ^T 17:57, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support. The astronomy meaning is the only one given by Merriam-Webster and by Britannica. If you Google syzygy -wikipedia, the astronomy meaning is second. The other top referents are an ad agency, an Ohio band, and a restaurant in Aspen. We don't even have articles about any of them, and I am sure none of them would be approved for primary topic status anyway. Kauffner (talk) 09:20, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

partial rewrite

I tried to incorporate most of the points made above on this talk page.

• Added an inline IPA pronunciation per TimL's addition to the disambig Syzygy page --it looked good to me: pretty much the way my Astronomy Prof pronounced it at the University of Buffalo (NY, USA)a few decades ago.
• Astronomical usage --added text-source integrity citation to first paragraph -- the McGraw-Hill encyclopedia web page.
• Added a section Effects that include two external citations and a link to Wikipedia article on ocean tides as affected by sun-moon-earth syzygy. The first 2 (external) citations are heavy on the negative side of the earthquake effect controversy; published papers do exist on the pro side, but I'm getting tired --it's after midnight. I will revisit the issue when I have more time. The issue is at least mentioned for the time being.
• I didn't remove the Doomsday section, but it still has no text-source integrity citation. I'm not familiar with this angle. ;)

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'Strategic context': I mostly was guided by the needs of Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy. To be honest, although the Wikipedia:WikiProject Eclipses seems to think this page is more important to their project than does the Astronomy project, I don't see that much can be added to it that the first paragraph doesn't already address.

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ISSUE: The 'This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source...' notation is still at the top of the page. Being a new editor at WP, I didn't want to go messing around 'administratively'. Can someone who is qualifed please adjust that? SilverBear12 (talk) 05:04, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Lagrange Points

Would it be worth memtioning that the Lagrange Points L1, L2, L3 (but not L4, L5) are in permanent syzygy with the primary and secondary bodies? 94.30.84.71 (talk) 22:22, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, the five Lagrange Points are intimately connected with the concept of syzygy. Furthermore, "syzygy" does not necessarily refer to three or more celestial bodies in a straight line. It refers also to other interesting configurations. For example, given a primary body, such as the sun, a smaller secondary body, such as Jupiter, and the much smaller objects at the L4 and L5 positions (the Trojan asteroids) always form a (very close to) equilateral/equiangular triangle. Five important Trojan asteroids include ones named Achilles, Hektor, Patroclus, Ajax, and Paris.

Other examples of syzygy occur when three bodies, such as the sun, the earth, and Mars form a right triangle. In the sciences, right angles are VERY important. See Euclidean vector for more.47.215.180.7 (talk) 10:23, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Gravitational Forces

"...and thus the gravitational force of the moon on the earth is trivial compared to the gravitational force of the earth on the moon." Two bodies in a gravitational system exhibit the same force on each other; the Moon pulls back on Earth as much as the Earth pulls on the Moon. The only difference being that there is more mass to the Earth, so the acceleration from the Moon is less. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.211.124.163 (talk) 10:09, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

You are correct. I reworded that sentence. TimL • talk 15:06, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The source material showing correlation between earthquakes and syzygy does not appear to be a good source ( Omerbashich, Mensur. "astronomical alignments as the cause of m6+ earthquakes". Retrieved 18 December 2012.). It is mostly referenced on UFO websites. Tealpanda (talk) 20:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

"Two bodies in a gravitational system exhibit the same force on each other." This also follows from Newton's Laws of Motion: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." This instantly calls into question the original statement (at the top of this section), and it should have been obvious.47.215.180.7 (talk) 10:38, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Picture caption incorrect

As the article now stands, there is one picture at right, with caption: "Above the round domes of La Silla Observatory, three astronomical objects in the Solar System — Jupiter (top), Venus (lower left), and Mercury (lower right).[1]" Even tho the reference [1] talks about 3 objects, there are four objects lined up in the picture. The one not mentioned is the most visible. Just thought I would open a little discussion here about it before I changed it. Friendly Person (talk) 18:20, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

As we are all earthlings and the earth is always visible to us, I think the wording is fine as it stands. If the picture had been taken far away from the earth on the other hand, said planet might be worth mentioning.  — TimL • talk 20:23, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

A Small Question

This is a question about gravity and syzygy. Has anyone ever done a direct accurate measurement of the suns gravitational effect on the earth during the moment of a complete (lunar) eclipse? I am just curious about whether there is even a tiny shielding effect from a planetary scale body. (I really need the same thing where the obscuring body is a black hole but that's a little more difficult.. :) )
If it could be found it should be added to the article, the absence of an effect is just as useful to me and I am sure others. Thanks for any attention on this. Lucien86 (talk) 08:06, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

This question would be more appropriate for the reference desk. I have no idea why you think a lunar eclipse would affect the sun's gravity.  — TimL • talk 03:31, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

It is really about whether travelling through a substantial physical body with is own gravitational field would have any effect on another gravitational field - the change would obviously be very small. Even the slightest change could be used to measure the speed of gravity directly - my interest. BTW It would seem to be too specialized a question for the Reference Desk. Lucien86 (talk) 20:37, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Gravity travels at the speed of light, that is well established, so I really have no idea what you are getting on about. This has nothing to do with syzygy and should be discussed elsewhere.  — TimL • talk 06:08, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

You obviously don't understand the issue and yes it does have a great deal to do with syzygy. (the speed of gravity is in no way proven BTW except by faith in general relativity) Thanks for your help. Lucien86 (talk) 12:07, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

By both Newton's Law of Gravity and Einstein's Laws of General Relativity, the presence (or absence) of an intervening mass (object) has nothing to do with the gravitational forces that exist (and can be measured). Nothing! In more technical language, the Principle of Superposition applies exactly in gravitational fields and forces. This is very, very basic to the whole science, and it can also be measured in the laboratory (by using more sophisticated equipment than Henry Cavendish had long ago.47.215.180.7 (talk) 10:48, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 1 August 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Even discounting the X-files episode, there is no consensus the astronomical article is primary over all the others. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 16:04, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

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• Syzygy (astronomy) → Syzygy
• Syzygy → Syzygy (disambiguation)

– primary topic, by far -- no other existing article comes close; previous request: Talk:Syzygy_(astronomy)#Requested_move. fgnievinski (talk) 17:06, 1 August 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 02:13, 9 August 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 13:06, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Fgnievinski: I have added Syzygy → Syzygy (disambiguation) in order to express all associated moves explicitly. SilverLocust 💬 17:33, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

thank you! fgnievinski (talk) 18:37, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

• Support While the nominator is incorrect - the X-Files episode does indeed come extremely close - I would say the astronomical term is still primary due to its additional long-term significance, as the episode's name was based on the astronomical concept. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 22:13, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
• Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 03:10, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Support - while the X-Files episode is transiently significant, the astronomical term is much more so long-term and is pretty clearly primary topic. Couruu (talk) 09:34, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose – there are decent outgoing views for Linear relation, Aeon (Gnosticism) and Anima and animus, making the astronomy article only get about 37% of outgoing views from the DAB. When raw pageviews are looked at, the astronomy article does have the majority (about 58% over the past year), but that's without those three articles included (I did include redirects pointing to two of them, but they don't get too many views). I don't think it's enough for primary topic status. The philosophical uses probably have similar long-term significance, as well. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 19:31, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Relist to allow discussion of Skarmory's recently presented evidence BilledMammal (talk) 02:13, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

• Weak oppose some of the other generic meaning like the mathematical meaning may have comparable long-term significance and The X-Files has comparable views (5,915 v 2,928[[1]] for the X-Files). Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:33, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

  The article containing a related mathematical concept is not even titled "syzygy", it's Linear relation. fgnievinski (talk) 00:50, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

apparent vs actual alignment

Recently an image of four planets and the Moon was added near the top as an example of an "apparent alignment". Since the planets and the Moon are always within a few degrees of the ecliptic, they are almost always "apparently aligned" in our sky. Therefore, I don't consider this phenomenon to be notable and wouldn't want to give it undue weight in this article that's mostly focused on actual alignments. (The image could possibly fit in the "other uses" section, however, as an example of the planets being located on one side of the Sun.) Since this might just be my opinion, though, I wanted to ask if anyone else had any input before I start moving things around. --Lasunncty (talk) 10:48, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

The image's caption read: "Apparent alignment involving Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn (in addition to the moon)." Now I've clarified it as follows: "Apparent planetary alignment involving Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn; the moon is also shown, as the brightest object." BTW, I had removed previously an image which didn't show any alignment, apparent or real, just a triangle (trivial for any tree points): File:Three_Planets_Dance_Over_La_Silla.jpg. fgnievinski (talk) 00:59, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

The caption is not the problem. My point is that the planets are not actually aligned. If you look at a chart of the solar system for the date the photo was taken, there is no straight line. For the "triangle" photo, however, the stated planets are in a nearly perfect line with Earth. --Lasunncty (talk) 05:26, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

For the sky photo, that's the distinction between "apparent" and real alignment, no?

For the apparent planetary triangle, you're right it's a real planetary alignment, here's an ancillary illustration I've just made; feel free to to edit the article if you feel like explaining it all. fgnievinski (talk) 06:08, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Ok, I've made the edit. Feel free to make additional edits or discuss further if desired. --Lasunncty (talk) 03:22, 14 August 2023 (UTC)