Jim Green, a Burlington native and Burlington High School graduate, is retiring early this year as NASA s Chief Science Officer.
NASA released a statement in September 2021 announcing Green s retirement.
Historic planetary conjuction will be visible Monday
Bob Hansen
The Hawk Eye
Perhaps it is not the Star of Bethlehem as seen by the Magi journeying to worship the Infant Jesus, but the Dec. 21 “Great Conjunction” of the planets Jupiter and Saturn still promises to be a spectacular astronomical event.
On Monday, these two gas giant planets will align in the winter sky, and for earth-bound viewers, they will appear briefly as a single great “star”. While there will be a 0.1-degree separation in the planets, to most viewers, they will appear to be a single bright heavenly body.
A conjunction of the two behemoths of our solar system occurs every 20 years, but this year’s small degree of separation makes the event exceptionally rare. The last time the planets aligned this closely was in December 1623.