Are there going to be any interesting planetary alignments in the year 2000?

OK...Here is the definitive list of all interesting astronomical events for that year! All dates are given as month/day, ie 5/6 = May 6th etc.

The 1958th rotation of the Sun will begin on 1/1
Easter Sunday will occur on 4/23
The 5761th year of the Jewish calendar begins on 9/30
The Moslem year 1421 begins on 4/6
There will be no total solar eclipses, but four partial eclipses on
         2/5, 7/1, 7/31 and 12/25
There will be two lunar eclipses on 1/21 and 7/16

Spring will arrive on 3/20 at 7:36:19
Summer  on 6/21 at 1:48:46
Fall on    9/22 at 17:28:40
Winter on 12/21 at 13:38:30

And now for planetary conjunctions, where one planet gets close to another as seen from the earth:
mercury and:       
  venus   3/15    separation 2.5 degrees
  venus   4/28               0.3
  venus   7/2                5.0
  mars    5/19               1.0
  mars    7/7                5.3
  mars    8/10               0.1
jupiter   5/8                0.8
saturn    5/10               2.3
uranus    1/28               1.3
neptune   1/20               2.4

Venus and:
  mars    6/21               0.3
jupiter   5/17               0.1
saturn    5/18               1.2
uranus    3/4                0.1
neptune   2/22               0.5

Mars and:
jupiter   4/6                1.1
saturn    4/16               2.4

Jupiter and:
saturn    5/31               1.2
On 3/4 there will be a close conjunction between Venus and Uranus with a separation of only 234 arcseconds (4 degrees). On 5/17 between venus and jupiter with a separation of only 42 arcseconds, and on 8/10 between mercury and mars with a separation of 289 degrees.

The moon will occult the following objects:

Uranus         1/9, 2/5, 3/2, 3/31
Neptune        2/4, 3/2, 3/30, 4/26
Venus          3/4
Mercury        7/29
As you can see from the number of conjunctions happening in May, this will be a rather optimal time to see many of the planets in roughly the same part of the sky. They will not be lined up along the line-of-sight, but will be lined up along the ecliptic; a thin band in the sky that corresponds to the orbital plane of the solar system. This happens every hundred years of so with no consequences for the earth!
Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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