Saturn

[mozart]

Hi,

Could you give me any reference ideas that would explain the cause or effect of placing Saturn in the constellation of Orion?

Thank you,

[neubjr]

not exactly sure what you mean by this question? Cause and effect of what about having saturn in the constellation orion? Do you mean how would moving saturn in the sky affect its orbit?

Joshua.

[mozart]

What I am wondering is what means of research would enable me to learn about why Saturn is in the constellation of orion. As you know planets move along the ecliptic in the 12 zodiac constellations, Orion is the 13th.

I am attempting to find out why. I hope this explains my question.

[steve]

You ask a good question.

Every outer planet (Mars, Jupiter, etc.) will move thru any other constellation of the Zodiac depending upon where it is in its orbit.

Because the stars are relatively fixed, and the planets (greek for 'wanderers') are not, they will wander thru the major constellations of the Zodiac.

Look at planets as moving in almost circular paths, inside another sphere which is fixed. The outer fixed sphere is where the constellations of the stars are.

The inner paths move against and past those fixed star patterns and constellations, moving on the plane of the ecliptic, which is the imaginary plane the planets move thru in their orbits around the sun.

So, given enough time, most planets will move thru or more accurately pass in front of most constellations, esp. if they are outwards from the earth, over time.

[timeshifter]

a very good question indeed.

let me see if i can adequetely describe what I am currently thinking...

Imagine platet "X" in orbit around the sun, in a three-dimensional space, where the starting orbit has a center of the origin, and crosses only the X and Z axes.

Now, imagine that over time it slowly moves up and down on the Y axis as well. This means that, given enough time, it will cross every single point on the sphere with center at the origin.

Another way to think about it is to look at the pendulum effect.
Even when started perfectly straight, it will always end up wobbling to the side, and slowly cover the entire area in a given circle.

Now, think of planet X as the pendulum. It would start its trek going very straight. So straight, in fact, that it would be virtually impossible to know that it would not stay on that path. Just like the pendulum, it would gradually wobble off the origional coarse, and cover all of the points. In the case of Saturn, this event would be very rare considering that it takes lots of time for a planet to actually move that far.

Chances are high that Saturn's origional orbit took it no where near where you are thinking. It took millions of years and the pendulum effect to move it to that position.