when is the shortest day of the year?

Answer 1

Winter Solstice, Dec. 21, yesterday.

Answer 2

The shortest day of the year is the Winter Solstice. December 21st this year. It is the shortest because of the way the earth is inclined towards the sun and we will experience the fewest daylight hours. Very interesting is that if you watch the sun rise and sun set times (they should be listed in the newspaper) You will see that we begin to slowly gain minutes of daylight each day from now until the summer solstice and then we will the days become shorter.

Answer 3

As the Earth travels around the Sun in its orbit, the north-south position of the Sun changes over the course of the year due to the changing orientation of the Earth's tilted rotation axes with respect to the Sun. This QuickTime movie illustrates the tilt of the Earth's equatorial plane relative to the Sun which is responsible for the seasons. The dates of maximum tilt of the Earth's equator correspond to the summer solstice and winter solstice, and the dates of zero tilt to the vernal equinox and autumnal equinox.

In the northern hemisphere, the Winter solstice is day of the year (near December 22) when the Sun is farthest south. However, in the southern hemisphere, winter and summer solstices are exchanged so that the winter solstice is the day on which the Sun is farthest north. The winter solstice marks the first day of the season of winter. The declination of the Sun on the (northern) winter solstice is known as the tropic of capricorn (-23° 27').

The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, respectively, in the sense that the length of time elapsed between sunrise and sunset on this day is a minimum for the year. Of course, daylight saving time means that the first Sunday in April has 23 hours and the last Sunday in October has 25 hours, but these human meddlings with the calendar and do not correspond to the actual number of daylight hours. In Chicago, there are 9:20 hours of daylight on the winter solstice of December 22, 1999.

The above plots show how the date of the winter solstice shifts through the Gregorian calendar according to the insertion of leap years. The table below gives the universal time of the winter solstice. To convert to U. S. Eastern Standard Time, subtract 5 hours, so the winter solstice occurs on December 21, 1998 at 20:43 (8:43 p.m.) EST; December 22, 1999 at 02:32 a.m. EST; and December 21, 2000 at 08:23 a.m. EST.

Note that the times below were calculated using WinterSolstice[] in the Mathematica application package Scientific Astronomer, which is accurate to within only an hour or so, and in practice gives times that differ by up to 15 minutes from those computed by the U.S. Naval Observatory (which computes December 22, 1999 at 07:44 UT instead of 07:32 UT and December 21, 2000 at 13:37 UT instead of 13:23).

Answer 4

All these answers do not include one important fact. The DAY you DIE is the shortest day of the year because you do not get to live the usual 24 hours. Got to admit it is true.

Answer 5

This year's winter solstice occurs on 22 December at 00.22 hrs, when the Sun is furthest from the celestial equator.

It can fall on the 21 or 22 Dec in a year.

Answer 6

Yesterday was the shortest 22nd December!

Answer 7

the shortest day is 21st december

Answer 8

Yesterday!

Answer 9

December 21st, the first day of winter.

Answer 10

USA yesterday and Uk Today 22nd not sure about the rest of the world