By MARSHA MERCER
In the longest, darkest nights of the year, we turn to
the light.
We set electric candles in windows, light the Hanukkah
menorah and the Kwanzaa Kinara, and decorate Christmas trees with strings of
light.
We adorn our houses, trees, shrubs and lamp posts with
colored, white, twinkling and flashing lights – the flashier the better.
The light show this pandemic holiday season started
earlier and seemed brighter and more sparkly than in other years. Since more people
were staying home for the holidays, they evidently amped up their displays. We
need it.
Our holiday lights outshine those in the night sky, but
this December the heavens offered us a rare treat: the “great conjunction” of
Jupiter and Saturn.
The giant planets aligned and from Earth appeared as
one bright star on Dec. 21. The planets appeared to be just a tenth of a degree
apart – about the thickness of a dime held at arm’s length, NASA reported.
How rare was it? The last time the two planets
appeared to be this close to each other was during the Middle Ages.
“You’d have to go all the way back to just before dawn
on March 4, 1226, to see a closer alignment between these objects visible in
the night sky,” said Rice University astronomer Patrick Hartigan.
Taking such a long view of the natural phenomenon
raises questions. What were people thinking and doing in 1226 when they looked
up to see this bright “star” in the night sky? Were they as consumed by their
daily cares as we are by ours? Surely, they were, but we know little about 1226
except that the “great conjunction” took place.
More recently, but still about 400 years ago -- as Europe
was embroiled in the Thirty Years War and the New World’s Plymouth Colony welcomed
two additional ships -- Jupiter and Saturn were nearly as close on July 16,
1623, as they were this week.
In 1610, the Italian astronomer Galileo, using his
telescope, had discovered the moons of Jupiter and an oval around Saturn that
became known as its rings. There’s no record of Galileo viewing the conjunction
of the two planets 13 years later, however.
The timing of the “great conjunction” so close to
Christmas this year was coincidental – the planets come together every 20 years,
although we on Earth can’t always see the event -- but it called to mind the
story in the Gospel of Matthew about the Star of Bethlehem that guided the Three
Wise Men. Astronomers believe a similar conjunction did happen around the time
of Jesus’s birth.
The very bright “star” is an optical effect. Jupiter
and Saturn were 500 million miles apart on Monday. The event was bright enough
to be seen with the naked eye. Or, for those under cloudy skies, observatories
closed because COVID-19 to in-person viewing parties live-streamed the
conjunction.
People around the world paused and looked up. For a
few minutes, we could put aside our worries about the coronavirus pandemic,
economic hardship and political struggles and marvel at the bigger picture
overhead.
Mankind has always consulted the night skies for
guidance on sailing the seas and when to plant crops. Looking into the night
sky sparks questions about how we got here and how we fit into the universe. The
ancient Greeks believed the gods placed the constellations in the sky to give us
lessons on how to live.
While most of us have lost our connections to the
heavens, astronomical events like the “great conjunction” fire our imaginations
and help us feel connected to other inhabitants of our blue dot of a planet.
In his 1994 book, “Pale Blue Dot,” astronomer Carl
Sagan wrote about a photo of Earth taken from a space:
“There is
perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this
distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to
deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue
dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
The next time Jupiter and Saturn will be this close is
March 15, 2080. Mark your calendar.
©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
