Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Bogelbaum here. Despite this most recent orbit
Speaker 1: being dominated by earthly struggles, has been an incredible year
Speaker 1: for astronomy. Whether it's SpaceX making headlines by launching Starlink
Speaker 1: satellites to provide WiFi for the world, or sending astronauts
Speaker 1: to the International Space Station twice, or the unexpected delight
Speaker 1: of watching Comet Neo wise journey across the sky. There
Speaker 1: have been some inspiring reasons to keep gazing up all
Speaker 1: year long. Before the ball drops and we reset our calendars,
Speaker 1: there's one more spectacular astronomical experience to mark on your calendar,
Speaker 1: the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December one.
Speaker 1: This celestial event is a once in a lifetime opportunity
Speaker 1: to see the gas giants of our Solar system appears
Speaker 1: so close together in the sky that they'll appear to touch.
Speaker 1: They won't, in act, and will actually be four hundred
Speaker 1: million miles apart. It's all a matter of perspective based
Speaker 1: on their orbits Jupiter, which orbits the Sun every eleven
Speaker 1: point nine years, and Saturn, which orbits once every twenty
Speaker 1: nine point five years, and the two planets appear close
Speaker 1: together roughly every nineteen point six years, but when they do,
Speaker 1: it's called a great conjunction, and the last one occurred
Speaker 1: in the dawn hours of May twenty eight, in the
Speaker 1: year two thousand. This year's great conjunction is particularly special
Speaker 1: as it's the closest these two planets will appear in
Speaker 1: the sky since March fourth of twelve, twenty six, and
Speaker 1: so it's been nearly eight hundred years since Jupiter and
Speaker 1: Saturn have appeared this close together due to the two
Speaker 1: planets orbits as well as our earthly one. Although there
Speaker 1: was a close Jupiter Satder conjunction in sixteen twenty three,
Speaker 1: it was too near to the Sun to be seen
Speaker 1: without a telescope and so was likely not observed by many,
Speaker 1: the telescope being a new object at the time. This year,
Speaker 1: the planets will appear very close, less than one fifth
Speaker 1: the diameter of a full moon, or roughly zero point
Speaker 1: one degrees apart in the sky. Astronomers use degrees as
Speaker 1: the largest unit of distance between objects in the sky.
Speaker 1: Most times, when two planets appear close together, there within
Speaker 1: two to four degrees of one another. To get a
Speaker 1: sense of how close Jupiter and Saturn will be in
Speaker 1: the night sky on the twenty one. Hold your arms
Speaker 1: straight out and make a fist, then stick up your
Speaker 1: pinkie finger at arm's length. The diameter of your pinkie
Speaker 1: finger is roughly equivalent to one degree of distance in
Speaker 1: the sky. Jupiter and Saturn will appear one tenth of
Speaker 1: the diameter of your pinky apart. With Saturn and Jupiter
Speaker 1: being so close together, they may look like a double planet.
Speaker 1: If you have a telescope, you should be able to
Speaker 1: see both planets and their larger moons in the same
Speaker 1: field of view, but they'll be fairly clear even through
Speaker 1: binoculars and visible to the naked eye. The Great Conjunction
Speaker 1: will be visible across Earth, though the timing will depend
Speaker 1: on your location and latitude. The best viewing prospects are
Speaker 1: near the equator, though those in the northern hemisphere will
Speaker 1: have a shorter viewing window before the planet's set beyond
Speaker 1: the horizon. For American viewers, the best time to observe
Speaker 1: this maybe twilight. You can look for them anywhere from
Speaker 1: December seventeen th December, though the closest approach is December one.
Speaker 1: And even though we had a very long wait to
Speaker 1: see this event, it's going to happen again on March
Speaker 1: fift a relatively short sixty years from now. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by Valerie Stymach and produced by Tyler Clay.
Speaker 1: For more and less amounts of other topics, visit hous
Speaker 1: to forks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I
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