Happy Solstice, everyone! Today is the shortest day of the entire year! I don't know about you, but I am so pumped for the long, sunny, days again and after today, daylight hours get longer and longer. So why is today shorter than any other typical day?
Today is especially short because the sun is right over the Tropic of Capricorn, a line of latitude just south of the equator.
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| The Tropic of Capricorn line |
It's the farthest south the sun gets before it goes north again, meaning that today is particularly short because the sun is moving across the sky closer to the horizon. We have these solstices because Earth doesn't orbit the sun upright, so each hemisphere gets more sunlight at different times. In this case, we receive less light in the northern hemisphere, and the Southern Hemisphere receives more because the north is tilted away. In contrast, the south leans towards the rays of the sun. There are also two solstices a year! So in June, we have another solstice that marks days in the northern hemisphere getting shorter. Pretty impressive, right! Today I am celebrating Solstice by staying inside, drinking coffee, and reading Stephen King's, The Shining, how are you celebrating?
Sources:
Grieser, Justin. “The Winter Solstice, Our Shortest Day and Longest Night of the Year, Arrives Monday.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 21 Dec. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/12/20/winter-solstice-shortest-day/.
“What Is a Solstice?” Video, video.nationalgeographic.com/video/101-video-shorts/00000160-7547-df2f-a17d-77d7ae7a0000.
