On December 21st, 2020, Jupiter and Saturn will align in the night sky to create the first "Christmas Star" in nearly 800 years.
У цей день (ніч) Сатурн і Юпітер утворять Різдвяну Зірку вперше за останні 800 років.
The Christmas Star is actually a dynamic planetary conjunction that can easily be seen in the evening sky over the next two weeks. Jupiter and Saturn will move closer to one another — which will culminate in an astronomical spectacle on the night of Dec. 21, the winter solstice.
Such an event, dubbed the “Jupiter-Saturn Great Conjunction,” occurs every 20 years. The last time this happened was in 2000, but t
hat event paled in comparison to what is taking place this year since the planets did not appear as close together then.The sky report also says that Jupiter orbits faster than Saturn because it is closer to the Sun, which brings them to the same direction in the sky as seen from Earth. What makes this year’s alignment so incredible is the distance of separation between the planets at the point of conjunction and that the close encounter is taking place Dec. 21, which hasn’t happened since 1623. But even in 1623, it would have been nearly impossible to see since it was outshined by the setting sun.
John Mosley told St. George news that according to his calculations, it would have been extremely hard to see, if they could have seen it at all, although astronomers would have calculated what was happening.
The conjunction would have been much different 400 years earlier when the position of the two gas giants would have seemingly converged into a bright star across the dark night sky on Dec. 21, 1226, according to Astronomy.com.
