Thursday 25 April 2013

The Milky Way Alignment on the Stonehenge Avenue

Henry Rothwell on Digital Digging has been playing with the latest version of Google Earth and has come up with some stunning pictures of the Stonehenge and Durrington Avenues at Solstice time showing the alignment of the Milky Way: Click for larger.

   
Stonehenge at 22:25 on the 21st of June : Durrington Walls Avenue at 04:00 on the 21st of June

Henry says: This is really just a conversation starter. I find it hard to believe that people so fond of linear geological features that align with the sunrise and sunset on the day of the summer solstice could have missed this very, very obvious coincidental phenomenon. Almost as hard to believe that no-one has spotted it until now. Which is why I’m prepared to be wrong. Please download the files (see below), play with them, see what you think.
The Stonehenge Avenue file is here, and the Durrington Walls Avenue file is here. Don’t forget you’ll need the latest version of Google Earth to run the experiment.


My friend Simon Banton comments:  "This is one case (perhaps the only one) where precession of the equinoxes affects the proposed alignment - 4,500 years ago this wouldn't work." and gives us this reconstruction.


The sky at Summer Solstice 2500BC, to demonstrate that the Milky Way doesn't appear vertically above the alignment of the Stonehenge Avenue 


It is beyond my understanding of astronomy but my huge thanks to both for this and especially to Henry for making the files available.

1 comment:

  1. For an unusual alignment to the Milky Way see this

    http://www.midnightsciencejournal.com/category/issues/201312/

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