M.J. Rose

This image via Milky way scientists.

While this beautiful planetary alignment of Mercury, Venus and Saturn is really going to occur later this year, it won’t line up over the Giza pyramids. This image is presently all over the internet – but the way the alignment is presented over the pyramids is false. The geometry is wrong. Here is what it will look like.

Isn’t it interesting how 2012 seems to be the year for all sorts of interesting celestial happenings? Makes one wonder if the Mayans were on to something? I think the pyramids are a celestial calendar – built as a language to indicate certain moments in time. But for what, who knows? Maybe just because when things happen in the sky it simply just looks amazing? The ancients were clearly interested in aesthetics (just look at those pyramids and then imagine them with their bright white casing stones intact – reflecting sunlight and moonlight as far as the eye could see).

P.S. By “ancients” I don’t mean the dynastic Egyptians – my gut tells me that these structures are way older than that.

…an ancient Indian mound has a secret hidden chamber inside…

Ancient astronomical observatory unearthed in Georgia was doomsday clock?

by GARY DANIELS

“About two hours south of Atlanta, archaeologists unearthed an ancient Indian mound which had a secret hidden chamber inside. Inside this secret chamber was a circle of fifty seats and an altar in the shape of a hawk or eagle. Known as the Ocmulgee Earthlodge, new evidence proves this earth-covered building was a sophisticated piece of engineering with precise astronomical alignments that likely served as an astronomical observatory. It also appears to have served as a type of doomsday clock forewarning its designers as to the next severe meteor storm…”

For the complete article click here. Fore in-depth background on the origins of the lodge, click here. For a video click here.

I was browsing National Geo’s Gallery of World Wonders for something to share here, and it was nearly impossible to decide which image to choose as an intro. Alas, after some consideration, this one won –

Hungary: Masked Avengers

Photograph by Joe Petersburger

“When the calendar turns to pre-Lent carnival season, one thing’s a given in the river town of Mohács in southern Hungary: The busók are coming. Not that anyone could miss them. Arriving by rowboat on the Danube and cloaked in shaggy pelts, carved wooden masks, ram’s horns, and the scraggly chops of a barbarian, some 500 men (and a few women) parade through town, bombarding the air with the jangle of cowbells…”

More about these masked fellows here, and even more world wonders here at World Wonders Photo Galley at National Geographic.