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Jupiter and Saturn aligned in a very special way on Monday night, and the results were quite stunning.
The two largest planets in the solar system rarely intersect that closely, and when they do, the rare event creates what some have called the “Christmas Star.” In other words, Jupiter and Saturn are so close that they appear to have merged into a single point of light.
The last time humans witnessed this impressive sight is estimated to have been around the year 1226, according to Michael Shanahan, director of the Planetarium at the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey.
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Astronomers think the rare event could have been visible in 1623 as well, but there are no recorded cases of humans seeing it. The reason? The planets crossed paths just at sunset and the setting sun overshadowed the event.
TODAY, meteorologist Dylan Dreyere explained the phenomenon during Tuesday morning’s show.
“You have Jupiter running around the sun; you have Saturn running around the sun. And basically, they hit each other,” he said. “These are the two largest planets in our solar system and they are so close together that if you look at them with the naked eye, they look huge.”
Earlier this week, Shanahan told TODAY that some believe that the Star of Bethlehem that the three wise men saw in the Bible’s Nativity story before the birth of Jesus was actually the “Christmas Star.”
“One possibility is that these two planets came together in 7 BC, about a year before the earliest possible time of Jesus’ birth, so it could have been a conjunction of the two planets,” he said. “If the sages were, as we believe, in fact astrologers, that could have been something they saw in 7 BC and said, ‘Oh, a great event is happening, let’s go to Bethlehem and check it out.’
Jupiter and Saturn actually align every 20 years or so, but the space between the two planets is usually about the width of two full moons. However, when they lined up on Monday night, the planets appeared to be side by side. In reality, they were still millions of miles from each other.
Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
If you missed the main event on Monday night, the rare “Christmas Star” won’t appear again until 2080. As a consolation, you can still see Jupiter and Saturn together for the entire month of December. NASA astronomer Henry Throop recently told TODAY that you simply need to look to the southwest just after sunset to see the view.
“For people who see it multiple times during the period, it is a great opportunity to see the movements of the planets,” Throop wrote in an email. “You can imagine Jupiter and Saturn as runners on a track. Jupiter is moving faster, and looking from night to night, people will be able to see Jupiter approaching and passing Saturn on its paths around the sun.”
