Jupiter and Saturn Will Align To Give Us the First Christmas Star in 800 Years

Despite its general dumpster-fire quality, 2020 has given us a few cool moments. The heavens gave us a literal bright spot on Halloween with a rare blue moon, and now they’re one-upping themselves in a HUGE way.

Christmas Star in nearly 800 years.

A Christmas star is actually when Jupiter and Saturn align so closely in the last week of December that they create a radiant point of light for those of us looking up from Earth.

Mercy gracious, don’t we all need a radiant point of light right now? I know I do.

An alignment between these two planets only occurs about every 20 years, so they are rare, but alignment this close, providing astronomical eye candy of these proportions, hasn’t happened since the middle ages, last occurring March 4, 1226.