5 things you may not know about the winter solstice

If the dreariness of winter wrapped within the confines of novel coronavirus restrictions have you a little down, take heart.

Every night from tonight through mid-June will get the slightest bit shorter, and the days will only get longer.

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The winter solstice officially occurs at 5:02 a.m. ET Monday in the United States, marking the astronomical beginning of winter and the moment at which the sun’s rays are directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, USA Today reported.

It also marks the shortest day and longest night of the year in Earth’s Northern Hemisphere.

According to PennLive, the date of the winter solstice varies from year to year and can fall anywhere from Dec. 20-23, but Dec. 20 and Dec. 21 are statistically the most common dates on which it occurs.

This year, the solstice coincides with another special astronomical event: A rare planetary alignment will allow Jupiter and Saturn to appear closer together in the Monday evening sky than they have in nearly eight centuries, and the phenomenon will not occur next until 2080, The Washington Post reported.

Because the Earth orbits the sun tilted on its axis – instead of perfectly upright – the solstice means the Northern Hemisphere leans away from the sun on this day, resulting in the least amount of direct sunlight received in a single day all year, while the Southern Hemisphere will enjoy its lengthiest sun-filled day, the Post reported.

Here are five more facts you might not know about the winter solstice, courtesy of the Post:

1. The word “solstice” is rooted in the Latin word solstitium, meaning “sun standing still.” On the winter solstice, the sun’s southward movement in the sky appears to pause, and we see the sun rise and set at its southernmost points on the horizon. After the solstice, the position of sunrise and sunset slowly begin to shift northward again.

2. The amount of daylight experienced on the solstice is determined by your distance from the equator, so states such as Texas, Louisiana and Florida experience more than 10 hours of daylight on the winter solstice, while much of the upper Midwest and those nearest the Canadian border will experience fewer than nine hours of sunlight. Washington, D.C. will experience 9 hours and 26 minutes of daylight on Dec. 21.

3. In Alaska, the sun barely climbs above the horizon this time of year, so Anchorage will enjoy only 5 hours and 27 minutes of sunlight on the winter solstice, and Fairbanks will only see daylight for 3 hours and 42 minutes.

4. The winter solstice equates to the shortest day, but not the earliest sunset. Because the Earth tilts on its axis and orbits the sun in an ellipse – and not a perfect circle – each solar day near the winter solstice lasts about 24 hours and 30 seconds, meaning it takes slightly longer than 24 hours for the sun to appear in the same fixed point in the sky on consecutive days. Over the course of a few weeks, that lag time compounds, causing both sunrise and sunset times to shift slightly later each day. In turn, the earliest sunset and latest sunrise times in most of the contiguous United States occur about two weeks before and after the solstice, respectively.

5. Mornings might continue to get darker for the next two weeks – due to the slightly later sunrises – but that darkening will be offset by a few minutes of gained daylight in the evenings. So, while sunset in Washington, D.C., may be at 4:56 p.m. by the end of December, that represents a net gain of 10 minutes of daylight since the beginning of the month, and by Jan. 6, that city will record its first sunset after 5 p.m. of 2021.

Cox Media Group