Jupiter and Saturn’s great conjunction
A conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn happened on the night of Dec. 21 which made headlines all over the world. The great conjunction is an astronomical event when the two planets Jupiter and Saturn appear closest together in the sky.
The last time the two planets were this close was in 1623. The planets regularly happen to pass each other in the solar system every twenty years with the position of Jupiter and Saturn aligned in the sky. What made this year’s spectacle so rare, then? It’s been nearly 400 years since the planets passed this close to each other in the sky, and nearly 800 years since the alignment of Saturn and Jupiter occurred at night, as it will for 2020, allowing nearly everyone around the world to witness this “great conjunction.”
Three days prior to the conjunction, you could see from our vantage point on Earth the huge gas giants appearing very close together, but remaining hundreds of millions of miles apart in space. The alignment of these planets will form a bright star; what has popularly become known as the “Christmas Star”. And in the distant past such events were seen as portents of things to come, from fires and floods to the birth of Christ.
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