On solstice day December 21, the day of their Great Conjunction, Jupiter and Saturn seemed to nearly merge . This is the closest conjunction in 400 years. This image was taken on December 21st at 3:11 PM UT. On this image two planets were separated on the sky by only 7.02 arcminutes, which is about 1/5 the apparent diameter of the Moon. Two image sets were used to show both details on the planets surfaces, as well as some of the larges satellites (see mouseover).