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The two largest planets in our solar system are set to line up in a conjunction for the first time in 800 years to create a “Christmas Star”.
Jupiter and Saturn will line up on December 21 and appear to form a double planet, just in time for the holiday season.
The Great Conjunction, also nicknamed the “Christmas Star” or “Star of Bethlehem”, has not been seen for 800 years.
According to Forbes, a “once in a lifetime” sighting of this proportion will no longer occur until 2080 and then sometime after 2400.
The phenomenon will be visible all over the world and appreciated by both avid fans and occasional star observers.
When their orbits align every 20 years, Jupiter and Saturn get extremely close to each other.
This occurs because Jupiter orbits the Sun every 12 years, while Saturn’s orbit takes 30 years – every two decades Saturn is lapped by Jupiter, according to NASA.
Patrick Hartigan, an astronomer at Rice University in Houston, Texas, told Forbes: “Alignments between these two planets are quite rare, occurring once every 20 years or so, but this conjunction is exceptionally rare due to the proximity of the planets. to another.
“You should go back to just before sunrise on March 4, 1226, to see a closer alignment between these objects visible in the night sky.
“On the evening of the closest approach, December 21, they will look like a double planet, separated only by 1/5 the diameter of the full moon.
“For most telescope viewers, each planet and many of their larger moons will be visible in the same field of view that evening.
“The further north a spectator is, the less time he will have to glimpse the conjunction before the planets sink below the horizon.”
NASA says the conjunction will look “spectacular” with a normal telescope or even with the naked eye.
In 1614, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler suggested that a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn could be what in the story of the nativity was called the “Star of Bethlehem”.
Others have suggested that the Three Kings could have followed a triple conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Venus or a comet to visit the baby Jesus.
Andrew Jacob, of the Sydney Observatory, told ABC that the planets will be so close together that you can see them in the eyepiece of a telescope.
“You would be lucky to see it once in a lifetime,” he said.
Astrophotographer Anthony Wesley also told the publication that he observed the two planets from his property in Rubyvale, central Queensland.
“I think they will only actually look their best from the naked eye perspective in the first week of December,” Wesley said.
“They are a little higher in the sky and if people are in town with street lights you just have a little more chance of seeing them before they get too low.”
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is the second largest in the solar system and the only place outside of Earth where surface liquid has been found.
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