#On #Monday (#Dec. 21), #Jupiter and #Saturn appeared closer together in the night sky than they had in 800 years. #To the naked eye, this “#Great #Conjunction” looked like a single, massive celestial object shining over the #Earth. #But to telescopes — and consumer cameras equipped with telescopic lenses — the planets showed their individual faces in stunning detail as they promenaded across the sky.
#Florian #Kriechbaumer, a photographer in the #United #Arab #Emirates, caught the celestial spectacle from one of #Earth’s most sky-scraping locations: #Near #Burj #Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. #In a large parking area across from the skyscraper (which stands 2,720 feet, or 830 meters, tall), #Kriechbaumer filmed the conjunction for 45 minutes, capturing the moment that the two planets made their closest approach to one another (from his vantage point).
#You can see his results in the time-lapse video below, which condensed the whole shoot into roughly 20 seconds.
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“#When I shot these there were a few clouds, so I was anxious if I could even capture it,” #Kriechbaumer told #Live #Science in an email. “#Luckily, they opened up at the right moment. #Seeing #Saturn’s rings and #Jupiter with some of its moons appear next to each other in your viewfinder is just such an incredible moment.”
“#Everyone should go out and experience looking at the planets and night sky once in their life,” he added.
#Stunning as it appears from #Earth, #Saturn and #Jupiter weren’t especially close together during the conjunction, #Live #Science previously reported. #Jupiter is currently about 550 million miles (890 million kilometers) from #Earth, or about 5.9 times #Earth’s distance to the sun, while #Saturn is about 1 billion miles (1.6 billion km) from #Earth, or about 10.8 times #Earth’s distance from the sun. #Relative to each other, the planets were still 450 million miles (724 million km) apart. They look close to us simply because #Jupiter’s orbit brought it into the line between #Earth and #Saturn.
#Originally published on #Live #Science.
[ source link ]
https://www.space.com/great-conjunction-burj-khalifa
##Jupiter ##Saturn #descend #worlds #tallest #building #epic ##Great ##Conjunction #video