In collaboration with NASA, today’s animated Google Doodle celebrates “The Great Conjunction”. Winter solstice usually takes place between December 19 and December 23 in the northern hemisphere. Today’s animated Doodle “celebrates the Northern Hemisphere’s first day of winter as well as this rare double planet sighting- or “Great Conjunction”- which can be viewed from anywhere around the globe!” Today (21 December) also marks the longest night of the year.
December 21 marks the Winter solstice in northern hemisphere and is the shortest day and longest night of the year. The exact opposite happens in the southern hemisphere. Google explained that today, Jupiter and Saturn will cross within 0.1 degrees of each other. The two planets will remain almost 450 million miles apart. According to a previous report, the conjunction in 2020 won’t be matched again until the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of 15 March 2080. The Jupiter Saturn Great Conjunction is being referred to as the ‘Christmas Star of 2020’. According to Google, “Saturn will be slightly fainter and will appear slightly above and to the left of Jupiter until December 21, when Jupiter will overtake it and they will reverse positions in the sky.
