The world isn't going to end today, The Irish Times can confirm, despite an infrequent planetary alignment involving five planets plus the sun and the moon. Sorry, there will be no tidal waves swamping cities, Sandymount and Cork won't be sinking into the sea, nor are the polar ice caps set to melt.
To add to the disappointment, punters won't even be able to see the alignment. While Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will obligingly fall into a slow line dance with the sun and moon, it will all happen during the day when only the sun will be visible. So don't even think about trying to look at the sun to see something or using sunglasses to block off the light, it won't work.
Happily you will, however, be able to claim the Earth moved for you as a result of the alignment. The five planets stretching out in a line off into space will exert an additional gravitational pull on us equal to about 0.00003 times the pull of the sun.
