What you need to know about Monday's winter solstice

It’s been a tough year. To many of us, every day during the coronavirus pandemic has felt incredibly long. Perhaps it will come as a relief that Monday will be the shortest day of the year. December 21 will also bring a rare cosmic phenomenon. If the sky is clear over the next few nights, look out just over the southwest horizon. You may see Jupiter and Saturn coming together and then drifting apart in an event known as “the great conjunction.” Although this occurs once every two decades, the last time they came this close, and we Earthlings got such a clear view, was in 1226.

William Teets, director of the Dyer Observatory at Vanderbilt University, explains what exactly happens on the winter solstice, and invites you to join his livestream of the great conjunction on Dec. 21.

This week we also liked a profile of Anthony Fauci, an in-depth piece about llamas and an article that explained what’s going on with food insecurity in Los Angeles County.