The Great Conjunction

Alright, I’m keeping my trend of astronomy news going this week! If you’ve been on Facebook this past week, you may have seen posts about how “The Star of Bethlehem” will be rising next week, just in time for many of us to celebrate Christmas. While that might not be exactly true, there is going to be a pretty cool astronomical event on December 21st. Check out this article.

On the evening of December 21st, the planets Saturn and Jupiter will be extremely close and may appear to be one large planet. This happens about once every twenty years, so it’s really not super rare. This one will be special though as they are SO CLOSE together. Normally, you can still differentiate between the two planets. This doesn’t ever really happen. The last time they got this close together was in 1623! And the next time will be in 2080.

If you start looking for the two planets now, you can notice how they move closer and closer together until Monday. They’ll be towards the southwest horizon, just after sunset. If you’re lucky and it’s clear, you’ll be able to see the two planets. Then on Monday night, you’ll be able to point out where they are going to appear as one!

I suggest the app “Sky Guide” as a foolproof way to find the planets.

-Jess