IT WILL be a unique cosmic configuration in known human history when Earth’s outer neighbour Mars will come the closest in 60,000 years, igniting unparalleled interest among space scientists on the one hand and astrologers on the other. Perhaps, no one among today’s generation will ever have a chance to witness again such a rendezvous of heavenly bodies.
While some will take up their telescopes and other gadgets to look deeply at the planet, others will calculate the planets’ movements and make predictions about the individual and industrial concerns and climatic conditions.
A three-day joint conference of scientists and astrologers was opened on August 1 to compare notes to find out whether they could use the movements of the stars and planets to predict natural disasters especially earthquakes. The participants were especially interested in exchanging information about the Ahmedabad earthquake in Jan 26, 2001 that killed over 20,000 people, which astrologers claimed they had predicted well in advance.
Whether astrology is an occult or scientific discipline has been long debated. However a majority of the world’s inhabitants have started believing that, if calculated on the precise data available, an efficient astrologist is able predict certain happenings, or at least be near the truth. For instance, Lachhman Das Mohan, an astrologer of repute and president of the Astrology Study and Research Institute, India claims that in the Babaji magazine he had predicted that the then prime minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, would meet a violent end three months before his assassination by a Tamil bomber woman in May 1991.
Can astrology work? For hundreds of millions of people all over the world it is a tedious and tantalizing question often asked since it was first introduced by the human race. Almost all of the communities — Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Assyrians, Hindus — have practised it and evolved various means to establish it as a science. The movements of various planets and stars in a particular rendezvous coinciding with certain happening made people believe that predictions of the same nature can follow the occurrence of similar events and that became a convincing argument for the establishment of astrology.
There can be more than one explanation to believe in the discipline of astrology. Academically, every star and planet has been assigned certain peculiarities which, according to astrologers, rule the destinies of human beings and other living things.
The basic concept is that all living creatures on Earth are born and brought up under certain gravitational forces that hang the Earth in the universe. The Earth moves within the planetary system in a given path, which rotates in the constellations encountering various other gravities. The Earth’s life adjusts itself gradually. The Sun, the source of life on the Earth is a major absorber of every extra pull that comes from other stars and constellations. Obviously, an alien force will affect life on Earth but sometimes various influences go out of the Sun’s reach. This affects human emotions and the behaviour of all forms of life on Earth. Since emotions are the driving force of action, they determine the course of life we call destiny. It is here that the personal traits, emotions, and finally human destinies are formed.
In the light of above prescription, how can the nearness of Mars affect life on Earth, is not difficult to understand. Mars is the fourth largest planet in the solar system. Its mean distance from the Sun is 227,940,000kms. Its day lasts for 24 hours, 37 minutes and 23 seconds, a little over the Earth’s day, which has a day of 23 hours, 56 minutes and four seconds, completing its year in 365.25 days. The Mars’ inclination of the equator is 24’.46”. Its density is 3.94 gram/ccm, as compared to the Earth’s 5.517 gram/ccm. As against the Earth, its diameter is 6,767kms, or in other words about half of the Earth’s. Although it is smaller than the Earth, it has enough gravity to withhold an atmosphere containing oxygen and argon with strong winds blowing in various directions. Its gravitational pull is much less than the Earth’s or if one is capable of lifting 50 kilograms on the Earth, he can pick 125kgs on the Martian surface. Large craters have been found on it are supposedly created by volcanic activities, perhaps the largest in the solar planetary system. It appears that ground ice is there but no signs of life have ever been found.
Generally, the physical characteristics of both planets are similar to each other but there are also differences in many of their physical traits, which makes life different. For instance the Earth has a magnetosphere around it which goes up to 150kms. This belt is the defender of Earth’s atmosphere, environment and life. This magnetosphere captures everything that tends to enter into the Earth’s atmosphere especially highly charged particles supposedly emitted by the Sun in its activities. Had it not been there perhaps life would not have come into being.
As far as Mars is concerned, scientists believe that there are many mineral deposits there especially of iron which, through oxidation, give it its reddish colour. Which is why Mars was called the god of war.
How far the planet can act vis-a-vis the Earth, has been the subject of extensive study for the past many thousand years. Ancient astrologers relate happenings on the Earth to the distance of conjunction. In February it is farther from the Earth, hence its effects can be felt less but in August when it comes closer, its effects the Earth’s gravity.
Although it has come closer to Earth in 1986, this time it will come to a point so close not known in recorded human history and astrologers say it has never been so close in the last 73,000 years. This means that the gravitational pull of the Earth would be affected.
It has already entered into the Earth’s orbit on July 29 and will reach its climax on August 27 and then recede but will remain in the Earth’s orbit till late September. This conjunction has many interpretations for astrologers who say that it will result in a number of violent convulsions. When they say violent convulsions it means that human emotions would be affected. Or when human emotions get affected, it would result in a number of acts not normally anticipated. Because it is a person’s mental state which control his acts and if not consciously controlled, many misjudgments can create unwanted scenes.
Climatically, the behaviour of the Earth’s crust and its magnetic field is also feared to be affected. This can be interpreted as a rise in the number of accidents, natural disasters, earthquakes, floods. Even conflicts are feared to occur more frequently than usual. Lachhman Das Madan, a member of the Astrology Study and Research Institute, Delhi fears some earthquakes and natural calamities.
Since there is no previous record of the results of such a cosmic configuration, it can only be assumed on the basis of similar conjunctions on a smaller scale. But one could expect a change in the behaviour of human beings and other forms of life during this configuration until the red planet is out of the Earth’s orbit.
