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This is the eventful month of December in space. This month saw meteor showers, then solar eclipses. But what will happen in space today, December 21, was last seen about 400 years ago. Today, the world is going to witness a very rare cosmic scene. The two planets of the solar system Jupiter and Saturn are paired. Today, Monday, the two planets will get so close that if the weather is favorable, it can be understood with the naked eye. The media NDTV and Anandabazar reported the news.
According to the US space agency NASA, it is not uncommon for two planets in the solar system to come very close to each other. Jupiter passes its neighboring planet Saturn every 20 years, but not that close. The last incident of this kind took place in 1823. The scientist Galileo Galilei is still alive. That was 13 years after the invention of the telescope. As such, after 396 years, the people of the world will once again be able to witness such a rare event.
Scientists say that today, Monday, Thursday and Saturday they will be close to one tenth of a degree from each other. After 60 years, that is, in 2060, these two planets will be so close again.
Scientists also say that these two planets came in a straight line 800 years ago, but the last time they were this close was in 1823. Professor David Weintrab, a space researcher at Vanderbilt University, said that such events can only be seen one once in a lifetime. Scientists call it the ‘Great Conjunction’ or ‘Mahasammilana’ or ‘Mahayugalbandi’. NASA has called this cosmic event ‘Christmas Star 2020’.
Why is this Jupiter-Saturn conjunction so many years later?
Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, orbits the Sun once every 12 years. And since Saturn is farther from the Sun, the circumference of its orbit is much larger than the circumference of Jupiter’s orbit. So it takes Saturn about 29 1/2 years to orbit the sun once. That is, when Saturn orbits the Sun once, Jupiter orbits the Sun twice. As a result, Jupiter passes in front of Saturn every 20 years.
We cannot perceive the distance or movement of the planets and stars in the sky, we only observe their positions at different times. And so from Earth we see Jupiter getting very close to Saturn, passing it and moving away again. However, how closely Jupiter and Saturn get closer depends on the position of the Earth. And according to that position, when Jupiter passes Saturn on December 21 of this year (today), the distance between the two planets from Earth will be minimal. Then its brightness will be the highest.
The last time Saturn and Jupiter were so close was in July 1823. But the two service planets were so close to the sun that they couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. Even before that it happened in March 1226.
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