Cosmic Signatures in the Corona Year – The Calculable and the Unforeseen

Constellations between planets such as the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on 21 December 2020 can now be calculated very precisely in advance. The same applies to the movement of the planets against the fixed stars or to solar and lunar eclipses. Comets behave quite differently: on their irregular orbits they are often discovered only when they approach the Sun. It is then possible to calculate when the Earth passes through their dust trail, but where and when a shooting star rising from it flashes in the atmosphere cannot be predicted. Sunspots, too, appear with particular frequency every eleven years, yet when a dark spot forms on the Sun and how its shape develops can hardly be predicted. Against this background of calculable and unforeseen cosmic phenomena, we turn our attention to the current year of the coronavirus pandemic and attempt to place it in a broader context.

A contribution by Hartmut Ramm to the webinar series “The Great Conjunction” of the Section for Mathematics and Astronomy in December 2020.

German | Subtitles · DE · EN
Publication: 14 August 2026