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Thom Allen prepares a telescope to view the “Great Conjunction” of Saturn and Jupiter, visible in the center of the image, in the West Desert on Monday, Dec. 21, 2020. Also dubbed the Christmas Star, the conjunction is the closest together the two planets have passed in Earth’s sky in nearly 400 years.
Spenser Heaps, Deseret News
Thom Allen prepares a telescope to view the “Great Conjunction” of Saturn and Jupiter, visible in the center of the image, in the West Desert on Monday, Dec. 21, 2020. Also dubbed the Christmas Star, the conjunction is the closest together the two planets have passed in Earth’s sky in nearly 400 years. The planets aren’t actually close, of course. They are just lined up from our perspective in a way they won’t be for another 800 years. In actuality, they are about 450 million miles apart. Jupiter is 544 million miles from Earth while Saturn is 993 million miles from our planet.