Can You See the Christmas Star on December 22

Annotation: Unable to encounter Monday'due south "Not bad Conjunction" due to cloudy skies? Y'all'll accept another chance to see a similar sight this week. Read more here.

Next week, star-gazers will be able to catch a once-in-a-lifetime sight in the sky, but yous might need to wait speedily.

It'southward called the "Corking Conjunction," or the moment when Jupiter and Saturn appear at their closest – "a 10th of a degree apart" – co-ordinate to Chicago'south Adler Planetarium.

The event is set up to accept identify on Dec. 21, which too marks the Winter Solstice, bringing the shortest amount of daylight and the longest night.

"This will still be quite a striking sight, only you lot volition need to look fast as both planets will set presently afterwards sunset," NASA's website says.

Those looking to see the star will want to expect above the southwestern or western horizon later on sunset, experts say.

Don't worry if you can't grab information technology on Dec. 21.

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Co-ordinate to the Adler Planetarium, the planets can be seen every bit early as Dec. xvi and 17, but the "real show" takes place "the evenings of the 20th through the 22nd."

"Throughout the first half of December 2020, you will be able to see these two planets appearing to describe closer together each night," the planetarium's website reads. "The all-time fourth dimension to encounter them is about an hr after your local sunset time. At Chicago'due south latitude, expect to the southwest to run across 2 shut objects fairly depression in the sky. The brighter one is Jupiter. The dimmer one is Saturn."

Though conjunctions happen roughly every 20 years, this ane will exist specially close.

It will be the first Jupiter-Saturn conjunction since 2000, but the first time the planets volition have been then close since 1623. Information technology will as well be the showtime time such a close conjunction has been observable since 1226, co-ordinate to EarthSky.

Adler says that if two planets announced to "merge briefly," it is called mutual occultation, though the current conjunction may non announced quite so close.

"The last mutual occultation of Saturn by Jupiter was well-nigh eight,000 years ago," Adler's website reads.

Still, co-ordinate to NASA, "while the two gas giants may appear shut, in reality they are hundreds of millions of miles apart."

The event has been dubbed the "Christmas star," because some astronomers have theorized the "Star of Bethlehem" could take been a rare conjunction involving both Jupiter and Saturn.

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Source: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/when-you-can-see-the-rare-christmas-star-in-the-night-sky-this-month/2393972/