Jupiter and Saturn’s great conjunction expected on December 21

The December 21, 2020 great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is highly conspicuous in the west after sunset each evening now. On December 21, the pair will be only 0.1 degree apart, according to Earthsky.org. 

Astronomers use the word conjunction to describe meetings of planets and other objects on our sky’s dome. They use the term great conjunction to describe meetings of Jupiter and Saturn, which are the two biggest worlds in our solar system. Though the two planets will appear spectacularly close together on the sky’s dome now, Jupiter and Saturn are actually 456 million miles (734,000 km) apart. Saturn is nearly twice as far away as Jupiter.

Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions happen every 20 years; the last one was in the year 2000.