On the night of the winter solstice, a rare cosmic event known as a planetary conjunction occurred when two of our solar system’s largest planets passed each other.
Also called the “Christmas Star,” during the conjunction, Jupiter and Saturn seemed to unite for a few brief moments and shine as one bright binary planet, when the two planets were actually more than 400 million miles apart.
Stargazers, astronomers and photographers brought out their best cameras and telescopes to capture the spectacular event. The Deseret News took several photos from Utah’s West Desert that can be viewed in this gallery.
Here are a few other images (via ScienceAlert.com):
Ed Piotrowski, posted the chief meteorologist for ABC-15 WPDE in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina this image of the planets on his Twitter account:
The NASA Earth Official Twitter account has a beautiful picture of the planets reflecting in a body of water – as well as Google’s cartoon of Saturn and Jupiter high-fiving:
Tom Kierein, an author and retired meteorologist, posted this beautiful image of the four largest moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Jupiter on his Twitter account. According to Kierein, the photo was taken by Sajal Chakravorty in Melbourne, Australia:
Great combination. Jupiter and its 4 largest moons (550 million miles away) and Saturn (1 billion miles away). Telescope photo from Melbourne, Australia by Sajal Chakravorty pic.twitter.com/q5971CTD4A
– Tom Kierein (@TomKierein) December 22, 2020
Matt Newey, a Utah photojournalist, posted on his Instagram account this image of the conjunction reflecting in the Great Salt Lake:
A Bay Area landscape photographer named Jim Tang captured this incredible image of the conjunction shining high above the San Francisco cityscape and shared it on Instagram: