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For the first time in 800 years, people on earth will be able to see the two largest planets in the Milky Way so close to each other that they will appear to touch each other.
Saturn and Jupiter will have a rare reunion from our point of view on December 21, 2020. The “conjunction”, or alignment, of the two planets has not occurred since 1226. Since the two planets are the largest gaseous bodies in our solar system, experts call this a “great conjunction”.
The two planets have been quite close in the sky lately, however, “it is fair to say that this conjunction is really exceptional in that the planets are very closely related,” Patrick Hartigan, professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University, wrote in a blog entry on the conjunction.
During this year’s conjunction, “the two planets will be visible in the same field of view in most small telescopes, as well as some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn,” Hartigan wrote. “In fact, they will be so close that it can be difficult for many people to separate them with the naked eye.
It will not be easy for much of the population to catch the rare celestial event, which falls on the winter solstice. The further away you are from the equator, the smaller your window to see the conjunction will be.
Either way, if you come out at dusk (in New York, it will be around 5 p.m.) and look up to the southwestern sky, you might have around an hour to find both planets. It will be helpful to use an app like Google’s Sky Map, which can be mounted to the sky to show where certain planets and stars are located.
The conditions should be ideal that day, as no low clouds obscure the view. However, if you miss it, the two planets will still be relatively close until Christmas. So try the next day. And if you miss it again, well, the next conjunction like this is 60 years from now.
And although they may appear close to our eyes, in space they are separated by a distance more than four times the distance between the earth and the sun.
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