+++*

Symbolic Forest

A homage to loading screens.

Blog

More astronomy news

A significant event is coming up

One last astronomy post for a while, and then I’ll talk about something different, I promise: in a few weeks time, on December 21st Saturn and Jupiter will be at their closest conjunction for several hundred years.

The Plain People Of The Internet: Conwhatnow?

They’ll come close together in the sky. The closest they’ll be for a few hundred years, in fact. They’re already fairly close in the sky right now, but on December 21st they’ll be so close that to some people they’ll look like a single spot of light, although people with 20/20 vision should still be able to see they are two separate dots.

Unfortunately … I’m not sure I’ll be able to see it. They’re both on the far side of the sun from us right now, and we’re basically watching Jupiter passing in front of Saturn from our perspective on the other side of the solar system. Because of this, they’re also fairly close to the sun in the sky, which means you don’t get a very long window of opportunity to see them. They will set together in the south-west sky only about 90 minutes after the sun does, so you have a brief window of time to see them together at dusk. If you’re on a south coast then things are grand; if you’re in a town, they may well be already below your neighbour’s roofline before the sky gets dark enough to see them. Personally, our only chance will be from an upstairs window. Fingers crossed, though, the sky will be clear enough to see something of them both together.