Page 225 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

bullet, at the rate of 18.5 miles every second. In the time that it has taken
you to read this paragraph, we have voyaged about 550 miles farther
along earth’s path around the sun.
3
With a year required to complete a full circuit, the only evidence we
have of the tremendous orbital race we are participating in is the slow
march of the seasons. And in the operations of the seasons themselves it
is possible to see a wondrous and impartial mechanism at work
distributing spring, summer, autumn and winter fairly around the globe,
across the northern and southern hemispheres, year in and year out, with
absolute regularity.
The earth’s axis of rotation is tilted in relation to the plane of its orbit
(at about 23.5° to the vertical). This tilt, which causes the seasons,
‘points’ the North Pole, and the entire northern hemisphere away from
the sun for six months a year (while the southern hemisphere enjoys its
summer) and points the South Pole and the southern hemisphere away
from the sun for the remaining six months (while the northern
hemisphere enjoys its summer). The seasons result from the annual
variation in the angle at which the sun’s rays reach any particular point
on the earth’s surface and from the annual variation in the number of
hours of sunlight received there at different times of the year.
The earth’s tilt is referred to in technical language as its ‘obliquity’, and
the plane of its orbit, extended outwards to form a great circle in the
celestial sphere, is known as the ‘ecliptic’. Astronomers also speak of the
‘celestial equator’, which is an extension of the earth’s equator into the
celestial sphere. The celestial equator is today inclined at about 23.5° to
the ecliptic, because the earth’s axis is inclined at 23.5° to the vertical.
This angle, termed the ‘obliquity of the ecliptic’, is not fixed and
immutable for all time. On the contrary (as we saw in Chapter Eleven in
relation to the dating of the Andean city of Tiahuanaco) it is subject to
constant, though very slow, oscillations. These occur across a range of
slightly less than 3°, rising closest to the vertical at 22.1° and falling
farthest away at 24.5°. A full cycle, from 24.5° to 22.1°, and back again to
24.5°, takes approximately 41,000 years to complete.
4
So our fragile planet nods and spins while soaring along its orbital path.
The orbit takes a year and the spin takes a day and the nod has a cycle of
41,000 years. A wild celestial dance seems to be going on as we skip and
skim and dive through eternity, and we feel the tug of contradictory
urges: to fall into the sun on the one hand; to make a break for the outer
darkness on the other.

Ibid.
3
4 J. D. Hays, John Imbrie, N.J. Shackleton, ‘Variations in the Earth’s Orbit, Pacemaker of
the Ice Ages’, Science, volume 194, No. 4270, 10 December 1976, p. 1125.

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