Conjunction. A conjunction is a celestial event in which two
astronomical objects appear close together in the sky.
This could be two planets, a planet and the Moon, or a planet and a star.
One example of a conjunction was in November 2023,
when Mars passed behind the Sun, as seen from Earth, for three weeks.
We had to pause spending commands to our spacecraft at Mars.
We also saw a conjunction in April 2022,
when Mars and Saturn switched positions in our morning sky.
But it's not just Earth's perspective.
In December 2016, the Cassini spacecraft at Saturn witnessed a conjunction as well.
The Earth, Sun, and Saturn lined up.
Conjunctions don't have a lot of astronomical significance,
but they are nice to view.
They occur frequently in our solar system because the planets orbit the Sun
in approximately the same plane, taking similar paths across the sky.