THE OUTDOOR SPORT – Last December 21 was not just a winter solstice – it was also the night of the “great communion” when Jupiter and Saturn were not. but “arc minutes” apart (a unit of square measure equal to 1/60 of a degree). This year, the two planets were slow (Jupiter takes 12 years to orbit the sun, Saturn takes 29.5) six minutes apart. According to Space.com, this isn’t close enough to appear as a single star, but it’s still an amazing event.
The last time these cloud groups met was 16 July 1623; then, they were five minutes arc apart and could only be seen by people living in North South America, central Africa or Indonesia. Prior to that, it was on 5 March 1226 – an event that was seen by most of the world’s population – and the
planets were only two minutes apart.
It’s too bad, for us here in the northeast corner of the country, the skies didn’t cooperate and we hid our view of this rare celestial rendezvous, which was once in a lifetime. We just had to take a word of science for it … And hey, at least it’s not the 1600s and we have Amanda’s nifty camera work to prove how cool it was.