June 30 marks the date when Jupiter and Venus are at their closest proximity in a rare conjunction that reportedly won't be seen for a couple of years.
"Across U.S. and British skies, the two planets appeared to pass within a fraction of each other in what is known as a 'celestial conjunction'," MailOnline reported. "A conjunction of the two planets is thought to have been responsible for the Star of Bethlehem which signalled the birth of Jesus in the nativity story."
"To the eye they'll look like a double star," Kelly Beatty, a senior editor at Sky & Telescope magazine, told CBS News. "Anyone who hasn't glanced at the evening sky for a while will be surprised by how dramatically tight the pairing is."
As such, the said series of Venus-Jupiter conjunctions "closely resembles a similar series between the years 3 and 2 B.C."
"It has been suggested that their joint appearance came to be known as the Star of Bethlehem," the news source added.
The BBC previously featured a piece on the "Star of Bethlehem" being the result of a conjunction. The news agency had interviewed University of Sheffield astronomer Prof David Hughes, who had first published about the subject matter in the 1970s.
Considering that the Babylonian astronomers/astrologists - the Magi - 2,000 years ago had seen the celestial event in their respective countries and even after they made the long trip to Jerusalem, Hughes had concluded that the said star was most likely not a star but "more than one single event" visible in the skies.
"Hughes's best explanation for this series of events is something known as a triple conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn - with the two planets coming close together in the sky three times over a short period," the BBC explained.
"[This happens when] you get an alignment between the Sun, the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn," Hughes added.
The recent planetary conjunction isn't all that rare, experts said. However, a conjunction similar in proximity to June 30's event will next be seen in 2023, according to astronomer Patrick Hartigan, as noted by CNN.
Although ancient Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews, as well as modern-day astrologists, regard such a phenomena as an omen of something significant, the said conjunction "have no effect on Earth or human affairs -- except for one," said Sky & Telescope's Alan MacRobert. "They can lift our attention away from our own little world into the enormous things beyond," he added.
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