‘Jupiter in Conjunction with Saturn’ will occur on Dec 21, the first of its kind in 400 years

Hyderabad: One of the splendid celestial phenomena ‘Jupiter in Conjunction with Saturn’ will occur at 11.51 PM on Monday.

Planetary Society of India (PSI) Director N Sri Raghunandan Kumar in a release here on Sunday said, in other words, both Jupiter and Saturn will appear to be near each other as seen from Earth after Sunset.

He said the last time this kind of close encounter between Jupiter and Saturn occurred was on July 16, 1623 and added the next time Jupiter and Saturn historical celestial meeting will be on March 15, 2080.

Mr Kumar said though this astronomical phenomenon will occur close to midnight, people in India can see these two planet’s closest encounter easily for an hour after sunset between 6.15 PM to 7.30 PM tomorrow as both of these planets will set in the West by 8.02 PM.

They appear like non-twinkling star-like objects to bare eyes, he added.

On the direction and timings, the PSI Director said half-an-hour after Sunset around 6.20 PM onwards one should look towards West direction then he/she first would see two non-twinkling star-like objects. Wherein the brightest one is Planet Jupiter and the other one being Planet Saturn.

Mr Kumar said though Planet Jupiter will not occult or eclipse Planet Saturn, people may experience difficulty to notice the gap between Jupiter and Saturn on December 21.

He said however, till the end of the year as days pass by, people can witness the growing gap or distance between these two objects in the sky after Sunset.

What is more interesting is that this coming together of these two planets has been noticed by people across the world for two weeks now. However, Mr Kumar said, after tomorrow, people can observe these planets moving away from each other in the sky over the next few days or weeks. (UNI)