A ‘Christmas Star’ will shine brightly early next week, as Christians worldwide prepare to celebrate Christmas What does the Bible have to say about this astronomical phenomenon known as the Great Conjunction? The planets Jupiter and Saturn will come together on Monday, December 21, to form what some have called the Christmas Star of 2020.
The astronomical phenomenon is officially known as a Great Conjunction and only happens once every 20 years. But the upcoming conjunction promises to be exceptional as the two gas giants will come within 0.1 degrees of each other – the closest visible conjunction in nearly 800 years.
And this is not an event you will want to miss as the spectacle will not be matched again until 2080. Because of how close the planets will come to each other, chances are they will appear as a single star-like object in the night sky. The phenomenon has, consequently, been likened to the Biblical Christmas Star as described in the Gospel of Matthew.
Some astronomers also speculate the fabled Star of Bethlehem that led the Three Wise Men to the newly-born Jesus Christ may have been a Great Conjunction of the two gas giants. Astronomers at the Royal Observatory Greenwich said: “Kepler is also associated with the idea that it was the close conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn that created the ‘star’. “In fact, there were three conjunctions, when the two planets were close to one another in the sky, but none of these were close enough that they’d appear as one object
Prayer Forums
The United in Prayer Forum Community