800 Years Since 'Christmas Star' Shines So Bright: WATCH

RANCHO MIRAGE, CA — December 21, 2020, marks the winter solstice — the longest night of the year — and the planets will celebrate with a display for all Earthlings to watch.

What has become known popularly as the “Christmas Star” is an especially vibrant "planetary conjunction" visible in the evening sky, culminating this year on the winter solstice, according to NASA.

The "star" is actually the planets Saturn and Jupiter aligning in the sky from our view on Earth, and it’s been nearly 400 years since the huge gas giants passed this close to each other in the sky, and nearly 800 years since the alignment of the two occurred at night, allowing nearly everyone around the world to witness the “great conjunction.”

From our vantage point on Earth, the planets will appear very close together, but they will remain hundreds of millions of miles apart in space.

While the conjunction is happening on the same night as the winter solstice, the timing is merely a coincidence, based on the orbits of the planets and the tilt of the Earth, according to NASA.

To help us Earthlings view the event, the Rancho Mirage Library and Observatory — and City Astronomer Eric McLaughlin — will train the observatory's telescopes on the two planets to get views never seen before.

Everyone is invited to watch online via a free live stream that begins at 4:30 p.m. PST. Watch the amazing show here.

Think you might miss the live stream? Don’t worry! You can find it on the Rancho Mirage Library and Observatory's YouTube Channel, which features over 300 other great videos.