If you're old enough you may remember the last big syzygy (what a weird-ass word... Greek, makes sense.) in 1982 that was supposed to cause massive earthquakes and disruption on Earth, geomagnetic storms etc.

Made famous by the schlock-science book "The Jupiter Effect" published in 1974.

I guess "Jupiter Effect" because it has the most mass. And sounded good as a book title.

The gravitational pull of all the planets on one side of the sun would raise storms, CME's etc. alter the weather just enough to place a tiny amount of stress on the angular momentum of Earth's rotation, and set off the San Andreas fault etc.

Made for good fodder on slow news days leading up to the big day in 1982. I guess WWIII with the Soviets breaking out on any given day wasn't good enough. Nor was the creepy Leonard Nimoy voiceover on "In Search Of:" re-runs warning about the killer bees coming up from Mexico.

Honestly, the fast and dramatic stuff like the Jupiter Effect, WWIII, and killer bee swarms seemed preferable to the more mundane slow grind of starvation through overpopulation when the world passed 5 billion, and freezing in the next ice-age that was coming, while OPEC refused to sell oil to the U.S. etc., that media and pop-culture drilled into kids heads through the decade prior.

Hell, ABC "Schoolhouse Rock" was trying to subtly prepare us kids for the inevitable post-meat futue with "Beans and Rice is Nice". At least until we hit the final wall in the terminal Soylent Green phase of industrialized second-hand cannibalism, in the far-flung futue of 2022...

Ahh... the 80's. Good times.