‘While the tidal pull of each planet on the Sun is extremely small, Stefani says that when two or more of the planets line up with the Sun – known as a syzygy – they might combine to cause small rotations inside the star, called Rossby waves, which can drive weather events.’
‘In 2024, graduate student Nick Tusay at Pennsylvania State University in the US used these alignments to look for any spillover communications being sent between worlds of the Trappist-1 system, such as how on Earth we send signals to planets like Mars in our solar system to talk to rovers and spacecraft. "Any time that two planets are aligned might be interesting," says Tusay.
On this occasion the searches turned up short. But an alien civilisation looking towards our own Solar System might use similar alignments for the same purpose. While the planetary parade this month depends on your point of view – any two planets in our system can be aligned if you are positioned at the right angle – it's not impossible to imagine someone else on the other end, watching on.’