Qatar Calendar House stated that Qatar skies will witness on Monday, December 21, the great conjunction between the two gaseous giants in the solar system Jupiter and Saturn. The angular distance between them during that phenomenon is only 6 arc minutes, which is the closest visible conjunction between the two planets in the evening sky in 794 years.
Astronomer at Qatar Calendar House Dr Bashir Marzouq stated that the residents of Qatar will be able to observe this rare conjunction between the planets of Jupiter and Saturn with the naked eye above the southwestern horizon after the sunset on Monday until 7:04 pm Doha local time, where the observer will see the two planets with the naked eye as if they were one celestial shiny body.
He pointed out that the reason behind this conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn is because Jupiter takes 11.86 years to circle the Sun and Saturn 29.5 years, the faster moving Jupiter catches up with the slower moving Saturn and overtakes it roughly every 19.6 years. The conjunction was viewed in 1980 and 2000. But this greater conjunction does not always occur, as the angular distance between / Jupiter / and / Saturn / differs in each conjunction. In the year 2000, the angular distance between them was 3 degrees, and the current conjunction would be only 0.1 degrees.
Dr. Marzouk explained that the conjunction will coincide this year with the occurrence of the winter solstice phenomenon, where the sun will be completely perpendicular to the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere on Monday during the winter solstice, and this day will be almost the shortest day for the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere, including the residents of the State of Qatar, while it will be the opposite for the inhabitants of the Southern Hemisphere, where the phenomenon of the summer solstice will occur on the same day, as the sun will rise from the southernmost point.
It is noteworthy that this conjugation occurs between the planets of the solar system when the planets appear close to each other in the sky to the observer on the earth. This conjunction in particular is described as the "great conjunction" because it is one of the rarest cases of conjugation between the planets that can be seen with the naked eye.
This phenomenon is a natural phenomenon and has no impact on the inhabitants of the globe, it considered one of the important astronomical phenomena, on which the inhabitants of the Earth depend and on it and the four seasons to know the climate changes.
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