Year 2012 -satya/dwapara Yuga

[Amber G.]

I think the critical date is June 10, 2012.

Everyone in my family knows that this is a Sunday, just 4 days after the interesting Transit of Venus.

Okay, I am not making this up. A few decades ago (some time in 70’s) when parental (not to mention aunties and uncles) pressure was high to find out exactly when I was planning to (finally) get married, - I mentioned the above date ( Sunday, June 10th 2012) Since everyone in my family knew I was very interested in astronomy (specially planetary motions – I had access to American Ephemeris and Nautical almanac – not to mention many years of Panchangs and had my own copy of Newcomb’s tables (about 600pages of tables of sun, moon and all the planets)) my rational, I thought, would seem logical <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> After all the day is going to be a Sunday and just four days after the Transit of Venus (2004’s transit was not that convenient) <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->



(For the record, I found even more auspicious day to get married, but we do plan – if we are alive by then – to renew our vows on that Sunday).

Anyway coming back to:

<!--QuoteBegin-Raju+Apr 22 2007, 01:06 AM-->QUOTE(Raju @ Apr 22 2007, 01:06 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->On the winter solstice in 2012, the sun will be aligned with the <b>center</b>  of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years.

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Isaac Asimov once ridiculed some popular pseudo scientific books which dealt with “age of Aquarius” and its “significance”. The authors, of course, had no understanding of precession of equinoxes and making statements like above.

And I think the above authors absolutely have no understanding about what the above sentence implies mathematically. (IOW defined in mathematical precise terms) . Again exactly what is this “alignment” ? (Can some describe it in the terms of standard mathematical language?) You can always draw a straight line between any two points (Sun and center of Galaxy, for example) … so what they are talking about and why it is a special event.

(I think I know what this is about – but let others take a stab at this)

(BTW, also if these these authors mean , what I think mean they mean, then event is not that "precise" Sun being about half a degree wide, at present too would eclipse the center of galaxy - rough calculations shows a period of about 20-30 years for this window which is spread around 2012)

P.S. Did any one here watch the Transit of Venus in 2004?