Great Conjunction

Ive been seeing Saturn and Jupiter coming closer to each other in the sky lately. Jupiter passes by Saturn every 19.6 years, and its called a great conjunction. But I just learned that on December 21st theyll look closer than they have since March 1226! Theyll be just 0.1 degrees apart: 6.1 arcminutes, to be precise. Thats less than a fifth of the Moons apparent width.

Jupiter and Saturn were even closer on July 17, 1623just 5.2 arcminutes apartbut the glare from the the Sun made them...