Today, 21st December 2020 is an extra special day. In addition to being the longest night of the year in the Northern hemisphere on Earth, today the two largest planets of our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, will appear to overlap each other to form a double planet.
The Winter Solstice, which is another name for the longest night, happens every year on the 21st of December. The crossing over of the two largest planets of our solar system, as viewed from Earth, is known as the “Great Conjunction”. These 2 planets can be seen with the naked eye and the last great conjunction happened a few months ago in May 2020.
What makes today special is the proximity at which these 2 planets will pass each other today. The last time these 2 planets were within 0.1 degrees of each other was almost 400 years ago! The icing on the cake is that this is all going to happen during Earth’s nighttime that will allow us all to view this spectacle clearly. The last time the great conjunction happened at night was almost 800 years ago and the next one isn’t scheduled to happen before 2080, making tonight a once in a lifetime opportunity to observe this celestial spectacle with the naked eye!
In India, the event will be visible between 6.30 pm to 7.30 pm in the southwest sky and should be possible to view it with the naked eye. However, if the weather decides to play a spoilt, you can watch it on the live video (of the telescope view) that will be streamed by the Nehru Science Centre Mumbai on their Facebook page (6:00 pm IST onwards) at https://www.facebook.com/events/766003274127002.
