BHOPAL: About 10,000 persons witnessed the conjunction of the Jupiter and the Saturn on Monday evening on the social media pages of the Regional Science Centre, Bhopal.
It was part of an online event ‘Aakash Darshan', organised by the Centre in association with the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (IGRMS), Bhopal to enable the people to watch the great conjunction. The event started at 6 pm and ended at around 9 pm.
On Monday, Jupiter and Saturn came closer to each other, which is being called the great conjunction, which happened after a gap of 400 years. The celestial marvel was last observed in 1623 and will again take place in 2080. The two slow-moving planets were just 0.1 degrees apart.
Project coordinator of Regional Science Centre, Bhopal Krishnendu Choudhury, told Free Press that they started beaming from 6 pm and the celestial marvel was clearly visible at 8.30 pm.
Around 10,000 persons watched the two planets coming close together through an 8-inch Schmidt Cassegrain telescope on the YouTube channel of the Centre, Chaudhury said, adding that one can watch the celestial event tomorrow also. The two slow-moving planets are just 0.1 degrees apart now, he said.
“It is not a day-long event. From October, the two huge planets were inching closer. If we look at a two-dimensional picture, it will appear like two objects are coming close by. But in reality, they are cruising on their circular orbits. Saturn is much farther from the Sun than Jupiter,” Chaudhury added.
