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“Christmas Star”, shot from the Casco de Vitosha area on Sunday night. PHOTO: “24 HOURS” Click to enlarge the photo.
Such fused in human eyes, the two planets have not been for 800 years.
The “Great Meeting” or “Great Meeting” of the planets Jupiter and Saturn will light up on the evening of December 21 on the longest night of the year. Such a fusion in our eyes of the two giants, like the current one, has not occurred since the Middle Ages.
Jupiter and Saturn are gradually getting closer to our eyes in recent weeks, but tonight is the culmination as they will line up before the human eye, just 0.1 degrees apart in the night sky, and shine like a brilliant “double star” .
Our reader was able to capture the already very close planets of the Vitosha Hoof region last night, one day before the “great union”. The photo was taken at 6.30pm on Sunday. It shows the brightest light on Jupiter when magnified, and above it, the dimmest light on Saturn. From the mountain above Sofia, the night sky was visible with clouds, but not dense, and this allowed the rare phenomenon to be captured.
Today the sun in Sofia will set at 4:56 p.m. and about 30 minutes later the light of the two planets will be noticed, say the Bulgarian astronomers. The end of the “kiss” of Jupiter and Saturn for the Bulgarian observer will occur at 19.17, when the two planets will hide below the horizon. If the weather is favorable, the phenomenon will be visible in the evening sky just above the horizon line in a southwesterly direction.
Astronomers call the phenomenon the Christmas star due to the hypothesis that the Biblical story of the star of Bethlehem was inspired by such a gathering of planets. And today is the winter solstice, when it is the longest night of the year.
Astronomers explain that Jupiter “catches up” with Saturn, which orbits in a wider orbit, once every 20 years, but the last time the world was able to see such close contact as expected was in 1226.
Where will Jupiter and Saturn be in the sky over Sofia in a southwesterly direction at 6.30 p.m. tonight, according to an interactive chart on timeanddate.com?
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