Jupiter Closes in on Saturn as Great Conjunction Approaches
Jupiter (right) and Saturn huddle about 2° apart on Tuesday night, Dec. 1 at 5:30 p.m. local time. They're headed for an exceptionally close conjunction on Dec. 21. Bob King Closer... closer... closer... It seems like it's taking forever for these two evening planets to reach conjunction, but rest assured it will happen. The big night is Monday, Dec. 21, when the two outer planets will squeeze together so tightly you'll barely be able to split them apart with the naked eye. Jupiter and Saturn move slowly across the sky because they're distant from Earth. Jupiter is the closer of the two, so it moves more quickly, taking about a year to pass through each constellation of the zodiac and completing one orbit in 12 years. Farthest of the classical planets, Saturn takes 29 years to make a spin around the sun. Every 20 years, faster Jupiter laps Saturn in a Great Conjunction . Speedier Jupiter shrinks the apparent distance between the two planets until they're closest o...