21st of december is the shortest night, yet it it seemed to get darker later tonight.?

Question

The same seemed to happen at the end of summer, the nights drew in quicker before the longest day. Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me.

Ok well spotted, Yes the longest night
And I am in the UK, but that doesn't the whole country is blanketed in fog. or that Jack the Ripper still stalks the streets, well not London any way.

Answer 1

Eugene is right. The Sunset starts to get later after around 15th December, but i think the latest sunrise will also be a week from now around 29th December. The Eliptical (oval shaped) orbit of the earth is at it's most extreme right now and the earth is closer to the sun right now than at any other time of year.

You may still be wondering how this actually causes the issue of different sunrise/sunset salstices though, so i shall do my best to explain! I have written quite a large explanation below which you may find rather complicated, but i tend to think the opposite and that people often don't explain things in enough detail and end up getting confused. I know i often do. Hence why i have written so much so avoid that. I hope it helps!

Ok, 1st of all you have to realise the difference between a solar day (24 hours) and the time it actually take the earth to spin round once which is 23 hours and 56 minutes. Our apparent day is 4 minutes longer because that is how much longer it takes the earth to spin round so it is facing the sun in the same position again (on average). It takes the extra time because of the orbit of the earth. The earth actually spins round 366.2425 times a year although there ony appear to be 365.2425 solar days per year. If you multiply 4 minutes by 365 and then divide by 60 the figure will be almost exactly 24, i.e theres ur extra 24 hours per year.

Now as for how this effects the sunrise/set times, well...

Note i said it takes an AVERAGE of roughly 4 minutes to spin this extra distance to be facing the sun again at the same 'time' that it was on the previous day. It takes a lot less than that during the equinoxes and a lot more at the salstices. This is because at the equinoxes, the earth is at the least curved position on it's oval rotation. At the solstices it is at it's most curved part of the oval rotation. Also this discrepency is far more apparent at the winter solstice than the summer solstice because the earth is also closer to the sun during the winter solstice and is actually the furthest away from the sun at the summer solstice, (I am talking about when the winter/summer salstices occur in the NORTHERN hemisphere of course).

So, right now we are at the most curved part of the earths oval rotation so the position of the sun relative to the earth is changing faster right now than at any other time of year. So in real physical terms it takes a lot longer than 4 minutes for the earth to turn the extra distance to be directly facing the sun at the same earth time that it was on the previous day. However, we do not change the number of minutes in a day on our human clocks at this time of year becuase that would just confuse people's lives too much.

If you think of the earths oval rotaion around the sun in 2 dimensional terms then if you were to look down at the orbit from the 'up' direction (i.e looking down at earth's northern hemisphere , then you would see that the earth orbits the sun in an anti-clockwise direction and also spins in a counter-clockwise direction. Therefore if you think about it and visualise it in your head, you can see why the earth at this time of year is taking longer than the extra 4 minutes to return to facing the sun in the same position at the same time it was on the previous day and hence it takes longer than 24 hours to complete a solar day.

So, it is basically out of sync with earth time or lagging behind it and the result is that when your clock says it's 8am, the earth hasn't actually turned round enough yet for it to be in the 'correct' position to make it 8am in 'real terms'. Hence why the sun rises later even after the salstice. Likewise, as the earths physical rotation in relation to the sun is behind 'Human Time', this also leads to later sunsets before the salstice as the earth hasn't turned round enough by the time it was sunset time on the previous day. The orbit of the earth around the sun means that there is this lagging effect present at this time of year more than at any other time and 12pm is not actually when the sun is it's highest in the sky, but rather a few minutes afterwards.

I hope this has helped!

Answer 2

OK .. you have to understand that because of the earth's elliptical orbit, things are not symmetric. Even though today has the shortest amount of sunlight, the sunset has been moving to a later time for about a week or more already. However the sunrise has been getting later. The latest sunrise actually happens in the first or second week of January. You have to look at the difference between the times to figure out the shortest amount of daylight.

Answer 3

The shortest day does not correspond with the earliest sunset.

The sun started setting later where I live a week ago.

Neither does the longest day correspond to the day with the latest sunset. It just has the most total daylight time.

Answer 4

Blimey, too much ale for u in the UK? Is all the fog confusing? The tilt of the earth is different for u than for me in California. Why does the moon look bigger when it is near the horizon than when it is straight above? Perspectives are different everywhere. Interesting question.

Answer 5

It's not the shortest night, it' the shortest day and 21st June is the longest day.

Answer 6

I think its the longest night and the shortest day

Answer 7

Tater says you should look for a job as a vodka taster, or apply with an internet provider as a quality insurance inspector, so you can be online the whole shift, making sure that websites are working properly.

Answer 8

It is the shortest day not night.

Answer 9

Maybe we've miscalculated and years are actually shorter than 365 and a quarter days long. Or maybe we are spinning faster with time....

Answer 10

This is the shortest day, thats why it got darker quicker.