Can astronomy explain the Star of Bethlehem? Bright stars adorn the tops of Christmas trees around the world. Almost everyone knows about the star that led the wise men to the manger in the small town of Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. The Star of Bethlehem is described in the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Is this star a biblical fiction or did it really exist? Let's look at it from the astronomers' point of view, described on Phys.org. To understand the Star of Bethlehem, we need to think like the Three Wise Men thought. Guided by this “star in the east,” they first arrived in Jerusalem and informed King Herod of the prophecy: a new ruler of the people of Israel had been born. We also need to think like King Herod, who asked the three wise men when the star appeared, because he and his court apparently did not see the star in the sky. These events give us the first astronomical mystery of the first Christmas: how could the court wise men of King Herod not know about the appearance of such a bright star and how it led the wise men to Jerusalem? Then, to reach Bethlehem, the Magi had to go directly south from Jerusalem; "the star in the east" "moved before them until it stood over the place where the child was." And here we have the second astronomical mystery of the first Christmas: how could a star “in the east” lead the Magi to the south? The north star led lost wanderers to the north, so why didn't the star in the east lead the wise men to the east? There is a third part of the mystery of the first Christmas: how did the star described by Matthew move “before them” and then stop and hang over the manger in Bethlehem in which the baby Jesus supposedly lay? What could the “star in the east” be? Any astronomer knows that no star is capable of this. Neither a comet, nor Jupiter, nor a supernova, nor a parade of planets, nor anything else can behave like this in the night sky. One could assume that Matthew's words describe a miracle that lies beyond the laws of physics. But Matthew chose his words carefully and wrote “a star in the east” twice, suggesting that these words had special meaning for the readers of his Gospel. Can we find another explanation that fits Matthew's words and that doesn't require breaking the laws of physics? Which one will fit into the modern way of astronomy? Surprisingly, the answer is yes. Astronomer Michael Molnar points out that "in the east" is a literal translation of the Greek phrase en te anatole, which was a technical term used in Greek mathematical astrology 2,000 years ago. He describes, and very specifically, a planet that rises above the eastern horizon shortly before sunrise. Moments after the planet appears, it disappears into the bright light of the Sun in the morning sky. It turns out that no one sees this “star in the east” unless they look at it at a certain moment. Now let's bring in a little astronomy. During human life, almost all stars remain in their places. The stars come on and off every night, but do not move relative to each other. The stars of Ursa Major appear in the same place year after year. But the planets, the Sun and the Moon are different from the fixed stars; in fact, the word “planet” comes from the Greek name for “wandering star.” Although the planets, the Sun and the Moon move along approximately the same path against the stars, they move at different speeds, so they sometimes obscure each other. When the Sun covers a planet, we cannot see it, but when the Sun overtakes the planet, it appears again. Now let's turn again to astrology. When a planet reappears in the morning sky shortly before sunrise for the first time in the many months it has been hidden in the sun's glare, the moment is known to astrologers as a heliacal rising. A heliacal rising is the special first appearance of a planet, and is what Greek astrologers called en te anatole. In particular, the heliacal rising of Jupiter was considered by Greek astrologers to be an important event for all those born on this day. Thus, "star in the east" refers to an astrono yt3.ggpht.