News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Thursday marks the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, a phenomena celebrated throughout history.
Tennessee Tech Astronomy Professor Steve Robinson said the Winter Solstice occurs when either of the Earth’s poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the sun. Robinson said the Solstice is all about physics.
“Because were tilted away from the sun, as the Earth rotates, sunlight falls on our area of the Earth,” Robinson said. “The more the tilt is the less hours of sunlight we get.”
The Earth will be tilted the furthest from the sun at 9:27pm Thursday night. People have been celebrating the Winter Solstice since before recorded history.
“Culturally, it was about the fact that it was the shortest day of the year, and so people were celebrating the fact that the sun would come back, basically, and they would have longer hours of sunlight from then on,” Robinson said. “Scientifically, studying the Winter Solstice gives us a more precise measurements of the Earth’s orbit around the sun and its tilt on its axis.”
Robinson said even though the Solstice is when the Earth gets the least amount of sunlight, it will not be the coldest day of the year.
“What’s been happening over the summer, previous two now, is that our part of the Earth has been warming up, and it’s still losing that warmth, and it will continue losing that warmth for a few weeks to a couple months after the Winter Solstice,” Robinson said. “So, it will actually get colder in January and February than it is now, and then gradually the warming effect will take over and we’ll warm up again as we get toward the summer.”
Robinson said the Winter Solstice is not necessarily a significant scientific event. However, he said it does provide one advantage to astronomers.
“For those who do look at the sky, the night sky, the advantage of the time around the Winter Solstice is that we simply get more hours of darkness to do that,” Robinson said. “So, I myself do astro-photography, and it means I can start my sessions earlier in the evening and not end them till earlier in the morning.”
