A rare astronomical event takes place on Monday night called the “great conjunction,” where Jupiter and Saturn will come to their closest point together in the sky. The two planets will not come this close again for nearly 400 years, and the event also aligns with the winter solstice. There are several ways to watch with or without a telescope.
The “great conjunction” is also nicknamed the “Christmas Star” by some, and will last for a few nights to come. It will be visible to the naked eye as a single point of light, separated by just a tenth of a degree. Viewers can see it by looking to the southwest just after sunset, according to a report by Space.com. The website is also hosting a live webcast of the conjunction for those that want to be sure they’re seeing it in more detail.
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Everybody’s talkin’ about tonight’s “Great Conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn in the southwestern sky. Planning to take a peek? Looks like great viewing for most, outside of the Northeast unfortunately. Check your forecast here: https://t.co/VyWINDk3xP pic.twitter.com/CYP48qBulE
— National Weather Service (@NWS) December 21, 2020
Of course, a telescope of some kind will provide a better view of the conjunction, and a webcast or other guide will ensure that you are looking in the right direction. NASA has more resources as well. Astronomer Henry Throop of the agency’s Planetary Science Division offered a simplified explanation for the curious.
“You can imagine the solar system to be a racetrack, with each of the planets as a runner in their own lane and the Earth toward the center of the stadium,” Throop said in a statement on NASA’s website. “From our vantage point, we’ll be able to see Jupiter on the inside lane, approaching Saturn all month and finally overtaking it on December 21.”
A conjunction makes two planets look extremely close together from the perspective of Earth due to the alignment of their three orbits — in this case, ours on earth seeing Jupiter and Saturn. These two particular planets align once every 20 years or so, but rarely this close. The last time Earth’s astronomers would have seen a conjunction of this kind was 1623, and that one was reportedly not visible in the night sky.
Other observatories are celebrating the conjunction and streaming their best views of it as well, including The Virtual Telescope Project in Ceccano, Italy and the Slooh observatory on the Canary Islands and in Chile. The Lowel Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona has a webcast as well, along with the Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory in Brentwood, Tennessee and the Astrophysics Group at the University of Exeter in England. The great conjunction begins at sunset on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2020.
