An incredibly rare "Christmas star" is set to light up the night sky this month in a celestial event that's not taken place since the Middle Ages.
For the first time in 800 years, two of the largest planets in our solar system are set to collide.
Jupiter and Saturn will come so close on December 21 that it will look like they are a "double planet", which, for those of us down on the Earth, will have the effect of them looking like a particularly bright point of light.
"Alignments between these two planets are rather rare, occurring once every 20 years or so, but this conjunction is exceptionally rare because of how close the planets will appear to be to one another," Patrick Hartigan, an astronomer at Rice University, told Forbes.
"You'd have to go all the way back to just before dawn on March 4, 1226, to see a closer alignment between these objects visible in the night sky."
Historically, the celestial phenomenon has been known as the "Christmas Star" or "Star of Bethlehem."
Not only this, but some people have gone as far as to theorize that the fabled star in the tale of the Three Wise Men may have been an example of a triple conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus.
However, it is worth noting that while the two planets will appear to collide, in reality, they won't actually be close at all, as Jupiter is 5 au from us. Saturn is 10 au.
An astronomical unit (au) is the distance between the Earth and the Sun and is how astronomers measure space in the vastness that is our solar system.
If you're hoping to catch a glimpse of the "great conjunction", Forbes advised that it will be visible anywhere with clear skies for around an hour after the Winter Solstice sunset on December 21.
This is definitely an event worth putting in your calendar, as it's not set to happen again until March 15, 2080, making it a once - or if you happen to be very lucky a twice - in a lifetime opportunity.
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