Jupiter and Saturn Will Be Closer Together Tonight Than They Have Been For Centuries

When planets appear together close in the sky, it's called a "conjunction." Sometimes the conjunctions are closer, sometimes they're further apart.

Tonight, Saturn and Jupiter will appear closer together than they have since the 13th century.

Saturn and Jupiter get close to one another from our perspective on Earth about once every 20 years because of their orbits. This year, however, the two planets will appear closer to each other than they have in centuries; that their duet is occurring at the end of December inspired the label "Christmas Star" for what is otherwise known as a "great conjunction."

Tonight is also the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. But it's just a coincidence that this grand conjunction happens on the same night as the solstice.

People have speculated that the Star of Bethlehem might have actually been a particularly close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, maybe coming so close that they appeared to be just one very bright star. But that's most likely not true; the conjunctions in a ten year period around the time of Jesus' birth were not very close, and so were not spectacular enough to draw much attention or strike any magi with curiosity.

Back in September, someone took a nice photo of Jupiter and Saturn appearing fairly close together above a Bronze Age standing stone.

A remarkable picture shows the two largest planets in the solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, in the night sky over the legendary Mitchell's Fold stone circle.

The circle, which is located in southwest Shropshire, was comprised of a great number of stones, many of which are now fallen or have gone missing. Some of them are as small as 10 inches in height, while others are taller than 6 feet.

It is believed there may have been approximately 30 stones that made up Mitchell's Fold, but the exact number is unknown.

Pictured: My dick, plus some stars

There is some good news for some readers: A Twitter Scientist, mostly likely a close professional colleague of Dr. Guy P. Benson, Ph.D., and Professor AllahPundit, has examined the Twitter Science and has determined that at the exact moment of the closest approach between Jupiter and Saturn, cosmic rays will ignite black people's secret DNA, thus conferring upon them literal superpowers.

No seriously, this was on Twitter. Ergo, it is true.

The other conspiracy theory doing rounds on social media is the hoax claim that black people will be bestowed with superpowers on winter solstice. The twitter was trending with #NegroSolstice and #BlackTwitter with several fueling the rumors.

"As black people, genetically we are stronger and smarter than everyone else, we are more creative, on December 21 our Real DNA will be unlocked and the majority will be able to do things that we thought were fiction," tweeted a user.

So they've got that going for them, which is nice.

It is believed that this theory was first proposed by Dr. Leo Spaceman.

I don't think Twitter is rushing to ban users for spreading this scientifically shaky theory.

posted by Ace at 02:57 PM

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