Hello, friends! Welcome to Sciency Words, a special series here on Planet Pailly where we take a closer look at the definitions and etymologies of scientific terms. Today on Sciency Words, we’re talking about the word:
SYZYGY
We’ve all seen pictures like this, with all eight planets lined up in a row:
And sometimes, on extra special occasions, the planets really do line up like that, or at least they come very close to it. When this happens, we call it a grand syzygy.
The word syzygy traces back to ancient Greek. It originally meant “yoked together,” as in: “The farmer yoked together his oxen before plowing the field.” According to my trusty dictionary of classical Greek, the word could also mean “pair” or “union.”
Some closely related words in Greek referred to balance, teamwork, sexy times, etc. And our modern English words synergy and synchronized have similar etymologies. Basically, what all these words have in common is a sense of people or things coming together, in one manner or another.
For modern astronomers, syzygy means three or more celestial bodies coming together to form a straight line. The most commonly cited example of this is the alignment of the Sun, Earth, and Moon that occurs during either a new moon or full moon, as observed here on Earth.
But an alignment doesn’t have to be perfectly straight to be called a syzygy, especially when we’re dealing with more than three objects. According to this article from The New York Times, a syzygy of the Sun, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn occured between March 25 and April 7, 1981. The Sun and five planets came “within 2 degree of arc from a perfect straight line.” Apparently that’s close enough.
But while that 1981 syzygy was pretty grand, it was not the grandest of grand syzygies. The planets Mercury, Uranus, and Neptune were left out. According to another article from The News York Times, a truly grand syzygy will happen on May 19, 2161, “[…] when eight planets (excluding Pluto) will be found within 69 degrees of each other […].”
So mark your calendars, friends! You don’t want to miss the grand syzygy of 2161!
P.S.: And if you’re a Star Trek fan, you may recall that 2161 will be an auspicious year for another reason. That’s the year when the United Federation of Planets will be founded—a political syzygy, one might say, occurring at the same time as an astronomical syzygy.
Planet Pailly 
Speaking of pseudoscience (from another thread for anyone else reading), the grand syzygy is when the world is going to end. At least, that’s what we were told in 1981. (It was subsequently explained that conditions had “changed” since that prediction.)
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One of those New York Times articles alluded to that. Something about the combined gravitational pull of five planets triggering massive solar flares, or something like that. And I read some similar nonsense when I was researching super moons for last weeks post. Like we were saying before, you have to disregard a lot of well established science in order to believe this stuff. Planetary alignments just don’t magnify the force of gravity like that.
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It’s a bit of a stretch for the NYT to describe all eight planets being within 69 degrees of each other in 2161 as a “truly grand syzygy”. Maybe that’s the closest we’ll get for a while but it hardly resembles a straight line and doesn’t seem particularly “grand”. It might make a great wide angle photo opportunity though!
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It’s just because all eight planets are involved, and that’s probably the best we’ll get for an extremely long time. But yeah, I kind of agree with you. It’s not as grand as it could be.
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Alas, I probably will not be around for the grand syzygy, but that is good to know! Thanks for teaching me another cool science word!
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You’re welcome! Syzygy happens to be my favorite word in the English language. The only problem is that it’s so hard to find opportunities to use it in normal conversation.
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Oh man, I really wanted to find a counterexample to use in my reply, but all I can think is that you’re right syzygy is hard word to use. I guess it’s only at that rare moment when everything aligns that you can use it. And then that sounds more like the highly-unsatisfying definition for GNU the computer language (not the animal) than real word usage. Words like word that only define themselves with reference to themselves should probably be outlawed. Before they can send my recovering English major brain down any more rabbit holes.
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Good one! Yes, everything has to align just right before we can use the word syzygy in casual conversation. But I still love it. It’s such a fun word.
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