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Solstice time, and all is well

During the buildup to 12/21/12, some people added an extra solstice twist to the Maya doomsday myth, contending that the precise time of the end of the world would be 11:11 UTC, or 6:11 a.m. ET. That's because the turnover date of the Maya Long Count calendar also happens to be the date of the December solstice, when winter starts in the Northern Hemisphere and summer begins in the Southern Hemisphere. Well, the solstice has occurred, and we're all still here.

What good is an apocalypse without a Twitter account? Mayan Apocalypse (@kabooooooooom)  has just chimed in with its first tweet: "Sorry everyone, running a bit late."

While we're waiting for further updates from Chichen Itza and elsewhere, check out JibJab's hilarious year-in-review video, with an end-of-the-world theme. And keep tabs on http://cosmiclog.msnbc.com/2012 for further updates as the day wears on.

More about the non-apocalypse:

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

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