Guanajuato, Gto., December 23, 2018.- According to Christian tradition, the star of Bethlehem was the astro that guided the Magi to the place of the birth of Jesus Christ. In this regard the professor and researcher of the Department of Astronomy of the University of Guanajuato, Dr. Juan Pablo Torres Papaqui explained some of the theories about this star.

In principle he said that the star of Bethlehem is mentioned in the Bible and alludes to the birth of Jesus, but from the scientific point of view is not known the exact date of his birth. There are some theories to explain the phenomenon of the star of Bethlehem, but as you do not know the exact date of birth, none of these has been verified.

The investigator mentioned that one of the first references of the Star of Bethlehem appears in a painting of the medieval period of the Year of 1300, "on that date it was possible to observe the Halley's Comet from the Earth, then the painter used this fact alluding to that it was the start to Bethlehem."

Another theory refers to the planets, "in those days there were no telescopes that we have today, then for people observing a planet was like seeing a star — and hence the definition that a planet is actually a wandering star, planets like the only stars that move in the firmament--then, in the year 7 BC, a rare fact known as the triple conjunction, which occurs between the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, occurred.

"This is because we observed the alignment of these planets three times in the sky, obviously in different months and agrees very well with what the Bible says about these magicians who saw this star in their country, then they observed it in Judea and then they realized that it moved southward to lead them to Bethlehem. This is one of the most accepted theories."

Another theory mentions that perhaps it was not the planets but a supernova explosion "when the stars reach their final stage, depending on their mass, they can explode in Nova or supernova. The difference between the two is the amount of energy released in this last episode of the Star. Some people comment that what was called the star of Bethlehem was a supernova explosion, which can be seen for months in the sky and looks like a star is being born. The only problem with this theory is that this explosion has not been detected. "

Dr. Juan Pablo Torres Papaqui concluded by saying: "The star of Bethlehem shows us as astronomers that the sky was already studied since very early times of civilization and in those days, they tried to make predictions of the future on observed astronomical phenomena. Today we do the same thing, we observe the sky and we try to explain the astronomical phenomena from the physics and mathematics from the scientific point of view."

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