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| Photo: Yasser Al-Zayyat / AFP |
The two largest planets in the solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, were within reach of a planetary kiss in the night sky on Monday (21), a phenomenon that will not occur again until 2080.
This “Great Conjunction”, as astronomers know it, occurred on the winter solstice for those in the Northern Hemisphere and early summer in the global South.
The two planets were, in fact, separated by more than 730 million kilometers. But, due to their alignment with Earth, they appeared to be closer to each other than at any other time in nearly 400 years.
The best conditions to see the phenomenon were clear skies and close to the equator, while people in Western Europe and a wide swath of Africa had to look to the southwest.
Hundreds of space fans also gathered in Calcutta, India, to view the event through a telescope at a technology museum in the city, or from the rooftops and open areas around it.
And in Kuwait, astrophotographers traveled to the desert west of the capital to capture the once-in-a-lifetime event.
Looking through a telescope or even a good pair of binoculars, the two gas giants were separated by no more than a fifth of the diameter of a full moon.
But, at first glance, they merge into a “highly luminous” double planet, said Florent Deleflie of the Paris Observatory.
“The Great Conjunction refers to the period when two planets have relatively similar positions relative to Earth,” Deleflie said.
“With a small instrument, even a small pair of binoculars, people can see the equatorial bands of Jupiter and its main satellites and the rings of Saturn.”
The last time Jupiter and Saturn were this close was in 1623, but weather conditions in regions where the encounter could be seen blocked the view.
Jupiter, which is the largest planet, takes 12 years to orbit the Sun, while Saturn takes 29 years.
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