The Star of Bethlehem Wasn’t Actually a Star, NASA Scientist Says

People love a good celestial mystery, and during the holidays, the “Star of Bethlehem” slips into seasonal stories and songs, whether or not anyone is thinking about astronomy. This month, there’s a bright guest overhead that naturally pulls attention back to the idea of a real astronomical event behind the legend, because Jupiter is shining harder than anything else around it.

According to Live Science, Jupiter is heading toward opposition on Jan. 10, 2026, which is when Earth lines up between the sun and the giant planet. That alignment puts Jupiter at its closest and brightest. During this stretch, it rises after sunset, climbs high through the night, and shines with an intensity that even people who never look up will notice. Astronomers estimate its brightness around magnitude –2.4 right now, reaching –2.5 by late 2025. A lower magnitude means a brighter object, which explains why Jupiter currently outshines everything except the moon.

None of this confirms anything about the biblical story, but it does explain why people keep trying to reverse-engineer the famous “star.” Theories have ranged from planetary conjunctions to stellar explosions. Some scholars point to a tight pairing of Venus and Jupiter around 2 B.C., while others examine the triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 7 B.C. Historians still debate when Jesus was born, which complicates the timeline, but the astronomy behind these events is well documented.

The Star of Bethlehem Wasn’t a Star at All, NASA Scientist Says

The issue is consistency. Jupiter’s bright phases repeat every 13 months due to the way Earth catches up to its orbit. It takes Jupiter almost 12 years to circle the sun, and Earth’s annual orbit means the two worlds align regularly. That cycle makes it unlikely to represent a single historic event. Still, it shows how a bright planet could have drawn attention in ancient skies, especially in a world without streetlights or screens competing for eye contact.

This month’s display offers a valuable reference point. If a single planet can dominate the night sky now, imagine how striking it would have been two thousand years ago when the only glowing distraction was a fire. Jupiter’s current brightness helps explain why theories spanning centuries keep circling the same possibility. A planet can make a strong impression, and that’s often all a story needs before it takes on a life of its own.

Whether Jupiter ever played a role in the Nativity story is impossible to confirm. What we can see is that a single bright object still pulls people in, even now that we know exactly what it is.