On December 21, 2020, the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn took place, when the two largest planets of the solar system were close to each other in the sky. The last time they met so closely was during the life of Johannes Kepler, in the 17th century, and the next time they will repeat this in 60 years. We have collected for you several pictures of this phenomenon, taken by amateur astronomers, astronauts and large telescopes.
The universe is volumetric, but from the Earth we see a flat picture – everything that happens in space is projected onto the “screen” of the celestial sphere. The conjunction of these planets is one of the effects of such a flattening of the Universe: celestial bodies are for us very close to each other, although in reality the distance between them is enormous. Astronomers distinguish between two types of connections: when an object is between the Sun and the Earth (this is the case with Mercury and Venus) and when our star is located between the objects on the Earth (applicable to all planets of the solar system). For lovers of the starry sky, such events are a kind of holiday, but for scientists engaged in space exploration, this sometimes creates problems. Every two years, communication with spacecraft on Mars disappears for about two weeks – due to the fact that the Sun gets in the way of radio signals from Earth.