Is the “Star of Bethlehem” really a planet? This month’s bright visitor may have a clue.

Christians are familiar with the story of the Nativity, in which the three wise men follow the “Star of Bethlehem” to the newborn Jesus. But does this Biblical story have astronomical origins? What was the “Christmas Star”?

Modern sky watchers have many theories, including that this star is a very close conjunction of Venus and Jupiter in 2 BC, or a less impressive triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn seen throughout 7 BC (historians continue to debate Jesus’ actual birth date). Another theory suggests it may have been the explosion of a bright star.

There will be no major mergers this December, and there will be no comets, star explosions, or anything particularly unusual visible to the naked eye. However, a bright spot of light is visible during most of the night, rising in the eastern sky as soon as it gets dark.

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Jupiter will be at opposition on January 10, 2026. On that day, Earth will be between Jupiter and the Sun, when the giant planet is closest to Earth and at its brightest. When an exoplanet like Jupiter is at opposition, Jupiter rises in the east at sunset, reaches its highest point in the sky around midnight, and sets in the west at sunrise.

Oppositions occur every 13 months, so it is doubtful whether Jupiter was the only “star of Bethlehem.” That’s because Jupiter takes 11.86 Earth years to orbit the Sun, and Earth comes between Jupiter and the Sun once every year. According to Sky & Telescope, Jupiter completes about 1/12 of Earth’s revolutions each year, so it takes about a year for Earth to catch up to the point where it aligns with Jupiter again, resulting in an opposition cycle of 13 months.

In December, one month before opposition, Jupiter rises about two hours after sunset. However, in the northern hemisphere, the sun sets early in December, so Jupiter dominates the sky for most of the night. Jupiter will be easily visible in the eastern sky after 8pm local time, dominating the night sky as the well-timed “Christmas Star.”

Shining at a very bright magnitude of -2.4 in early December, Jupiter will get even brighter as it approaches opposition, reaching magnitude -2.5 by the end of 2025 (in astronomy, lower magnitudes correspond to brighter objects, with negative magnitudes being the brightest).

Was Jupiter the star of Bethlehem? We may never know, but in December 2025, that brilliance will be worthy of a stand-in.