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Sky watchers in the Arab world watched tonight, Monday, December 21, 2021, the rare conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn, which is described as the great conjunction, and astronomers have waited 800 years to follow its appearance, as shown in the image in the Saudi sky, in Jeddah.
He observed the great conjunction, after sunset towards the southwest horizon, where the two planets appeared as a single “star” to the naked eye observer, but thanks to imaging cameras. or telescopes, it was possible to distinguish between the two planets, and to see some of Jupiter’s large moons.
This conjunction is considered the best between the two planets since the Middle Ages, as they are only 0.1 degrees apart, and this apparent distance is very close to our perspective on Earth, but the planets remain separated by hundreds of millions of kilometers in space.
The great conjunction took place on the same day of the winter solstice, and it is also a unique coincidence, depending on the orbits of the planets and the tilt of the Earth’s axis, because such conjunctions can occur n ‘ any day of the year, depending on where the planets are in their orbits.
And the date of the great conjunction is determined by the locations of Jupiter, Saturn, and Earth on their paths around the sun, while the date of the winter solstice is determined by the tilt of the Earth’s axis. , so this rare coincidence gave people a wonderful opportunity to get out and see the planets in the solar system.
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