{"id":58186,"date":"2025-12-11T08:57:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T08:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/58186\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T08:57:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T08:57:32","slug":"the-star-of-bethlehem-comet-or-early-sat-nav-117","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/58186\/","title":{"rendered":"The Star of Bethlehem: comet or early sat-nav?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the next two weeks more will be spoken and sung about an unusual astronomical phenom\u00adenon than about any other heavenly body throughout the year. What was the Star of Bethlehem? How did it guide three kings of the Orient \u2014 or maybe \u201cwise men\u201d or magi \u2014 from Babylon across some 900 miles of desert caravan routes to arrive at Bethlehem in time to witness Christ\u2019s birth? Was the \u201cwandering star\u201d an asteroid, a comet, a rare triple conjunction between Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, or simply a delightful myth?<\/p>\n

Mark Matney, a Nasa planetary scientist, has been poring over ancient Chinese records and is convinced that a bright comet visible for more than 70 days in China in the spring of 5BC was the same one that appeared to settle over Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Has a wise man at Nasa solved the Star of Bethlehem mystery?<\/a><\/p>\n

He argues that the comet\u2019s trajectory brought it perilously close and for a few hours its eastern motion would nearly cancel out the effect of Earth\u2019s rotation, which satellite engineers know as \u201ctemporary geosynchronous motion\u201d. By then the magi, in reality astronomers excited by comets thought to herald royal births and divine intervention, had arrived in Jerusalem. The \u201cstar\u201d pointed them south to Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

Another astronomer from Sheffield, Professor David Hughes, had already posited in the 1970s that the star was an alignment between the Sun, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, a conjunction occurring every 900 years. Or it could have been a \u201cdirty\u201d comet, its melting ice blown by solar winds into a tail in space. Or maybe it was even the light from a new star, or nova.<\/p>\n

But why should science and mathematical calculations spoil our carols, Christmas trees and \u00adfestive decorations? Surely the star was a \u00addivine early sat-nav \u2014 a way of guiding the world to the stable, thrilling us with hope and joy ever since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the next two weeks more will be spoken and sung about an unusual astronomical phenom\u00adenon than about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-58186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}