But today we have the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice! The winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and it also marks the longest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere. But this year the winter solstice actually started on Monday at 11:48 p.m. EST. So technically, winter started yesterday here in the USA.
The winter solstice occurs because as we all learned in school, the Earth rotates on its axis which means it is tilted. So when the Earth rotates around the sun we experience seasons thanks to the tilt. Each hemisphere experiences winter when it is tilted away from the sun and summer when it is tilted towards the sun.
So this leads us to a very fair question. Why is the Earth tilted? Scientists do not know for sure, but they hypothesize that the Earth is tilted because of collisions during the formation of the solar system billions of years ago. So what I've learned was that seasons are a complete accident. Yikes.
But anyways, in the winter time we experience limited sunlight. We already got a sneak peak of what these days will be like. On average, according to the International Business Times the United States gets between 8 1/2 hours to 10 1/2 hours of daylight per day. While poor little Alaska has less than four hours of daylight per day.
But since winter is officially and finally here, we know that spring is on the way! So enjoy your hot cocoa and snuggling with the blankets while watching Netflix while you can. And if you get snow, enjoy it for a bit then complain, because not everyone gets to experience snow. But while you're busy shoveling all your snow, I'll be at the beach. So I guess you win some and you lose some. Enjoy the winter and holiday season, it won't be around for much longer! I hope you enjoyed this little science lesson and until tomorrow.
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