"So when they had heard the king, they departed: and behold, the star, which they had seen at its rising, led them until it came and stood over the place where the child was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy." (Matthew 2:9-10)
The star, whatever it was, was moving. Stars, in obvious relation to other stars in the night sky, do not move. They appear to move only one way—east to west—across the night sky because of the Earth's spin. They also travel across the sky from east to west for many weeks and months as the Earth orbits the sun.
The Magi saw a star in the east and followed it, probably as it moved west. We could just as easily say they followed it as it moved across the sky for a few days or weeks... but then the celestial object did something extraordinary - it stopped and "stood over the place where the child was." Whatever this object was, it stopped in the sky, so the Magi knew where they would find the child. There is no other record of a star stopping. Just this one.
So what was this "star"? Apart from observing how the star came to a stop, Matthew gives it no other specific characteristics. The account does not say whether it was unusually bright, colorful, or otherwise unusual. Tradition holds that it was unusually bright because it caught the attention of the magi. However, some research suggests that the magi were Persian astrologers. Therefore, the star—which might have looked quite normal to others—had some astrological significance to them. But it has not yet been explained how it came to be standing still in the sky.
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