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Dear friends and colleagues,

On Monday the 21st of December we have the solstice. The December solstice occurs at 10:02 UTC.

The South Pole of the earth will be tilted toward the Sun, which will have reached its southernmost position in the sky and will be directly over the Tropic of Capricorn at 23.44 degrees south latitude.

This is the first day of winter (winter solstice) in the Northern Hemisphere and the first day of summer (summer solstice) in the Southern Hemisphere.

This rare phenomenon of these two planets is known as a great conjunction, making these two outer planets appear close together in our night sky. Even so, this is the "greatest" great conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn for the next 60 years, with the two planets not appearing this close in the sky until 2080. And after that they will not be so close until 2400.

The two bright planets will appear only 7 arc minutes of each other in the night sky. They will be so close that they will appear to make a bright double planet. If you are an observer in Cyprus look to the South-west after sunset (17:00 - 18:00) for this impressive and rare planetary pair.