Quote ="sally cinnamon"One of the explanations for the biblical 'Star of Bethlehem' is a planetary conjunction between Jupiter and Venus like this as there was one that would have been clearly visible over Jerusalem in the east in August 3 BC, where Jupiter was particularly bright at the time and Venus was right on top of it so it would have looked like a large single star and shone much brighter than anything else in the sky.'"
Nah, that is just a rubbish explanation, as the planets in the course of a night just move right across the sky from one side to the other like everything else appears to.
What you would actually need is an object that in fact orbited in a retrograde motion, so that it maintained precisely the same position relative to Bethlehem. A bit like a geostationary satellite. No natural phenomenon ever has or ever could achieve the feat.
Even a bright object near the Pole Star would be no good, as it would only be of any use as a guide to travellers approaching from due south, from anywhere else (especially north) they'd be royally fooked using that as a GPS.
