Overview
- Today’s solstice is a single astronomical instant that begins the Northern Hemisphere’s astronomical winter.
- Earth’s roughly 23.5° tilt makes the Sun highest over the Tropic of Capricorn, with polar night in the Arctic and continuous daylight in Antarctica.
- The solstice date shifts from year to year because the civil calendar and the solar year differ, most often falling on December 21 or 22.
- Daylight now lengthens very gradually in Italy, by only seconds at first and roughly a minute by December 31, with larger changes at higher latitudes.
- The Ursid meteor shower is expected to peak on December 22, typically producing about 10 meteors per hour under dark skies, though some years see higher rates.