TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - The winter solstice is coming up on December 21st -- and it just so happens that another planetary event will occur on the same day. Jupiter and Saturn will keep appearing closer and closer together in the southwest sky over the next several nights, finally appearing to align almost perfectly the evening of Monday the 21st.
As University of Toledo’s Dr. Michael Cushing explains it: “Any time two objects get close to each other in the night sky, we call that a ‘conjunction’... these happen all the time, but it just so happens we have what’s called a ‘great conjunction’ on December 21st. [Jupiter and Saturn] will be within 0.1° of each other, or 1/5th the size of the moon -- which is a very small angle, almost at the limit of what the naked eye can resolve.”
Dr. Cushing wants to clear up the Internet rumor mill right away, and assures a bit tongue-in-cheek that the planets will not actually collide. “It’s kind of like seeing two airplanes cross in the sky, and you sort of think they might hit... but it turns out one was 3000 feet higher in altitude than the other -- so they’re not going to collide.”
In reality, the planets will be some 455 million miles apart from each other -- hardly a close encounter even at their size. It’s a little like how “supermoons” only appear barely larger than usual: not very spectacular, and not really on many astronomers’ radar.
”For professional astronomers, it has no real value because we can observe these planets any time we want,” says Dr. Cushing. “Having [the planets] look like they’re close together without actually being close together doesn’t help us in any way.”
Conjunctions between the two largest planets in our solar system happen about once every 20 years -- Jupiter takes 12 years to orbit the sun, while Saturn takes close to 30, hence the occasional overlap. Encounters this close and visible from Earth, however, are quite rare.
”The last time there was [a great conjunction] like this, it was 1623,” explains Dr. Cushing, “but it was so close to the Sun that no one really saw it. The last time people could really see it was in the Middle Ages, back in the 1200s.”
Some have even taken to calling it a “Christmas Star”, harking back to the biblical Star of Bethlehem which the Three Wise Men followed. (In 1614, Johannes Kepler had actually suggested that sighting may have been a result of these aligned planets -- though present-day calculations have found the celestial bodies were separate enough to appear as two dots, not one.)
Dr. Cushing says while the event is of passing interest to most astronomers, any excuse to get people interested in science is one worth making: “It gets people to look up, instead of looking down at their cell phones. Anytime we can get someone to go outside, get some fresh air, look up at the night sky and appreciate their place in the universe -- I think that’s a good thing.”
If this event wasn’t enough, it also happens to fall right within the peak window for the Ursid meteor shower... though the great conjunction will be fleeting, being so close to the horizon. Your best bet to witness this celestial event is between dusk and 7pm on Monday, December 21st, in the southwestern sky just above the horizon. If you end up missing it, at least you won’t have to wait another 800 years, with the next closest pass for a great conjunction expected in the year 2080.
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