Today marks the first day of the winter season. Very ironic that it is in conjunction with another conjunction that happened today as well–the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, generally being referred by some as the Star of David Event. The shortest day is today and the sun is as far south as it will get this season. The day does not represent the earliest sunset or the latest sunrise, notwithstanding any daylight savings time changes. The earliest sunset is at 4:20 p.m. from the period of December 2 to 15, where tonight’s sunset was 4 minutes later at 4:24 p.m. The latest sunrise can be the last week in October and before the time change in November, but if it weren’t for that, it would still not actually be today, but in about a week. Johannes Kepler discovered that the orbits along which the planets travel around the Sun are all ellipses in comparison to the Sun, in his laws of planetary motion in the 17th century. This means that the evenings are already getting lighter. Our winter also ironically enough is closest to the sun which on the date of January 4 it reaches perihelion, the point at which the Earth is closest to the sun. And snow.

Image © 2020 VersaTileer

You can as a reference refer to an index of all the times of sunrise, sunsets and other information available at the website: timeanddate.com: https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/usa

Information courtesy of timeanddate.com