Kepler proposed the Jupiter-Saturn triple conjunction of 7 BCE in Pisces; others propose the Chinese-recorded comet or nova of 5 BCE, or Jupiter's occultation by the Moon. Each candidate fits some verses and breaks others.
Assessment: Documented astronomy, unresolved identification. The sky offered several omens; the text does not say which.
Interesting claims
Written in stars, not in events
Acharya S and Maxwell hold the star is pure astrotheology: the narrative maps celestial symbolism, not a sky event, aligning the nativity with solstice and Sirius lore. No independent record of the star exists outside Matthew.
Assessment: A fair observation with an unprovable conclusion. Absence of records outside Matthew is real; whether that means no event or just no surviving log is undecidable.
Stories
The three kings that scripture never counted
Matthew says magi, never three, never kings, never named. Tradition supplied Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, their camels, their races, their relics in Cologne Cathedral. The nativity everyone pictures is a thousand years of folk expansion built on eleven verses.
Assessment: Documented as the growth of legend: the names appear in a 6th-century manuscript, the relics were translated to Cologne in 1164. The folk version is far better documented than the star itself.
Sources and further reading
Matthew 2:1-12
Johannes Kepler, De Stella Nova in Pede Serpentarii, 1606, the Jupiter-Saturn hypothesis
Book of the Later Han astronomical records, the 5 BCE guest star
Worth asking
The magi were astrologers: the story only works if stars mean things. Does the account record an event, or does it record what the first century believed the sky was for?