CD-B DIRECTORY

COSMIC DATA-BANK

PROJECT 1: CONTINUED

DISTRIBUTION OF THE PLANETS FOR THE NHL PLAYERS

You have seen the distribution of the Earth and the Sun in the sectors of the heliograms of the NHL players. Here is the distribution results for the other planets.

    1. MERCURY

Mercury orbits the sun every 88 days or 4.15 times per Earth year at a speed of 48 kms/sec or 172,800 kms/hr on average. It is the planet closest to the sun and follows an elliptical orbit. It is the second smallest planet in our solar system after Pluto with a diameter 40% smaller than the Earth's and 40% larger than Earth's moon. It was named by the Romans.

From the total group I have chosen to use the NHL players born between January 1, 1965 and November 10, 1981. This gives a total of 726 men or slightly more than 95% of the world's most professional ice hockey players. The time period represents 70 complete orbits of Mercury around the sun. Because the orbit of Mercury is elliptical the time spent in each sector is not the same. For example, on average, heliocentric Mercury spends only 5 days in sector 4 while it spends 11 days in sector 9. The results below are corrected for time spent in each sector by Mercury.

The highest count is seen in sector 11 and the least number of players have Mercury in sector 1. The same information is shown on a graph directly below.

 2. VENUS

Venus is the second closest planet to the sun. It has an almost circular orbit around the sun at a speed of 35 km/sec or 126,000 km/hr. Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty because it is the brightest object in Earth's sky after the sun and moon. The time period from January 1, 1965 until November 4, 1982 was used as that represented 29 complete orbits of Venus around the sun. These dates include 732 of the 761 player total with only 29 players outside the chosen orbital periods. Because Venus has an almost perfectly circular orbit around the sun one might expect to see equal numbers for Venus in all the sectors. This is not what has been observed for the NHL players.

Venus is found most frequently in sectors 1, 6, 9 and 11 with the peak being reached in sector 6. There is a total of 298 NHL players with Venus in those four sectors, accounting for 40.7% of the total in just one-third of the sectors. Venus is found least often in sectors 2, 3 and 5, accounting for only 153 of the players; a total of 20.9% of the total in one-quarter of the sectors.

 3. MARS

Moving away from the sun, past Mercury, Venus and the Earth, one encounters Mars. Considered to be the god of war by the Romans, the planet has a distinctly red color to it when viewed in the night sky. The month of March is named after Mars. It has a significantly elliptical orbit around the sun. At its closest point to the sun it is 141.7 million kms from it and at the furthest reaches of its orbit it is 228 million kms from the sun. This has an effect on the time period spent in each sector (See table below.).

Mars is closest to the sun when in sectors 11, 12 and 1 and furthest away from the sun in sectors 5, 6 and 7. In the general population fewer children are born with Mars in sectors 11, 12 and 1 than in sectors 5, 6 and 7 by a factor close to 30%. The result for the distribution of Mars in the heliograms of the NHL players is shown below.

• sector 1 - 49               sector 2 - 41              sector 3 - 54              sector 4 - 75          sector 5 - 63              sector 6 - 64
• sector 7 - 71               sector 8 - 69              sector 9 - 65              sector 10 - 60         sector 11 - 57           sector 12 - 58

In this study the fewest number of NHL players are found with Mars in sector 2 while the highest number are counted in sector 4. However, we know that Mars does not spend an equal amount of time in each sector and this must be factored into the results. The following formula may be applied to the NHL player's results.

        Adjusted Count = (number of players in sector # / number of days Mars spent in sector #) X 68

•    # - the sector number must be the same for both sides of the division line.
•    68 = the most days Mars spends in any one sector.

The adjusted total for Mars in the sectors for the 726 NHL players is as follows

• sector 1 - 68               sector 2 - 53              sector 3 - 63              sector 4 - 80          sector 5 - 63              sector 6 - 64
• sector 7 - 73               sector 8 - 78              sector 9 - 80              sector 10 - 82         sector 11 - 81           sector 12 - 82

In the adjusted count the fewest number of players were found with Mars in sector 2 followed by sectors 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7. The drop in sector 2 is significant even when adjusted.

Once the totals are adjusted to make the number of days Mars spent in each sector the same, one can see that the high count sectors are 4, 9, 10, 11 and 12. These five sectors total 53.2% of the player total. A peak is reached in both sectors 10 and 12 in the adjusted counts for Mars.

4. JUPITER

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun and is the largest planet in our solar system. Here are some interesting facts about this giant.

• orbital period around the sun = 11.86 Earth years
• diameter at the equator = eleven times the diameter of Earth's equator
• if Jupiter were hollow, 1,000 Earths could fit inside it.
• mean orbital velocity = 47,052 km per hour

5. SATURN

Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun in our solar system and the second largest after Jupiter. In Roman mythology Saturn was known as the god of agriculture. To the Greeks he was the god of time. The English word Saturday is named after Saturn (Saturn's day).

•     Saturn has an orbital period of 29.46 Earth years around the sun
•     It has an orbital eccentricity of 0.056

Both Jupiter and Saturn take much longer to orbit the sun than Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Jupiter spends approximately one year in each sector and Saturn spends about 2.5 years in each sector; everyone born in that 2.5 years will have Saturn in the same sector These are much longer time periods that those for Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars with little differentiation between the sectors showing up in the NHL statistics.  The decision was made not to include the counts for these two giant planets in the project since there was not even one complete orbit of Saturn during the time period under study for the NHL players.

Continue this project by following this link:   ANGULAR SEPARATIONS