Stargazers around the world didn't pass up an opportunity to see a rare event in the night sky.
On Monday evening, Jupiter and Saturn appeared closer to each other than they have for hundreds of years, in what has become known as the Great Conjunction. Their proximity is the view from Earth. In space, the planets are hundreds of millions of miles apart.
Jupiter and Saturn's positions in the sky align "about once every 20 years," according to NASA, though almost never this closely.
"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," Patrick Hartigan, an astronomer at Rice University, said in a recent statement.
Photographers around the world captured images of the gas giants appearing to shift close together — and groups of people taking in the unique sight.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. 9(MDAyNDY5ODMwMDEyMjg3NjMzMTE1ZjE2MA001))
