The two gas giants - Saturn and Jupiter are coming closer to each other!
Except that they aren't actually 'coming closer' to one another.
It's just that when viewed from Earth at the proper instant, these one of these heavenly bodies, both moderately bright dots in the night sky, will be in proximity to the other.
 |
| Artist's impression (Credit: Allure) |
Astro-folks, the best part is yet to come. This particular celestial event, termed as a inter-planetary conjunction or simply, conjunction, since 2005, there has 279 recorded conjunctions and this is the 280th one, but what makes it so special? To answer that, we need to have a quick history check.
Year 1226
The Mongol emperor Genghis Khan has been successful in uniting the nomadic tribes of Northeast Asia and is now expanding his territory far and wide. Khan, all of a sudden, calls off his military campaign in West China and withdraws his armies to Mongolia.
Historians speculate that this decision was influenced by astrological interpretation of a celestial event. Turns out that between November 20, 1226 and January 28, 1227, there have been five conjunctions!
The five conjunctions in detail were published in a paper by A. Vibert Douglas of the Kingston Centre under the title Historical Significance of Five Conjunctions, 1226-27:
The first of the five conjunctions involved Mars and Saturn, with Mars moving eastward more rapidly than Saturn and passing it about November 20 (1226) when Jupiter was some 5° further east.
The second conjunction occurred when Mars came into alignment with Jupiter at the end of November.
The third involved Venus and Saturn about December 18 with Venus moving rapidly eastward.
By December 27, the fourth conjunction took place when Venus passed Jupiter.
The fifth occurred a month later about January 28 when Venus overtook Mars. By that date, Saturn had already passed the Sun into the pre-dawn sky and Jupiter was to follow suit in early February.
All of these happened within a span of two months. Out of the five interplanetary conjunctions, the one with Jupiter and Saturn occurs every twenty years, but only a handful of them have had their impact on the lives of people.
Year 1325
The Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of 1325 influences the Italian poet, Dante Alighieri to such an extent that he uses the celestial event in his literary work, The Divine Comedy, to indicate a powerful leader who would reform Christianity.
Year 1345
This year's conjunction takes place on March 21, 1345, but from various literary works it seems evident that 1345's event was predicted ominous.
From 1347-1351, about 25 million people dies from bubonic plague and the astrologers 'prophecy' is taken into account.
Another plague occurred in 1373, the same year a Saturn-Mars conjunction happened, astrologers used the 1345 event as a reference.
Year 1623
It has been fifteen years since the monumental invention of the telescope by the Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, Galileo Galilei based on the designs of the Dutch eyeglass maker, Hans Lippershey. However, this conjunction is quite impossible to view from Earth as it is 13 degrees away from the Sun.
 |
| Composite image of the predicted conjunction. (Credit: BBC Sky) |
Roughly after 400 years, on December 21, 2020 the two gas giants will again be aligned close to each other and this one will be the closest encounter since 1226. Even though they may appear close, they will actually be separated by about 450 million miles!
Social distancing on point.
0 Comments