Winter Solstice

Today (which, by the time you read this, will be yesterday) was December 21, 2020, the day of the winter solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year in Earth's Northern Hemisphere. This day is mostly over-and-done now. It was the first day of winter, and days will now begin getting longer. In the Southern Hemisphere, today was the longest day and shortest night of the year. For those who live down under, this is/was the first day of summer, and days will now begin getting shorter. By "day," I refer to the number of hours of daylight, not the 24 hour day, which is always 24 hours long.

Also tonight, the "Christmas Star" reappears after 800 years. The Christmas Star is not a star, nor does it have any legitimate connection to Christmas, so of course newspaper writers call it the Christmas Star. It's actually a planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. A conjunction happens when two planets come close together from our perspective. They aren't really close together, but their orbits take one planet near the other from our point of view. The event's true name is the Great Conjunction of 2020. For ordinary, non-star-gazing folk, the night sky will look like any other night sky. But if you know where to look, you might be able to see the Great Conjunction of 2020—the Christmas Star.

I felt tired this afternoon, and so I lay on my bed, and I fell asleep. When I awoke the time was 10:30 PM. I remembered that tonight is "Christmas Star" night. I went to my front door and looked outside and saw the Christmas Star. Holy smokes, it was huge! It was the size of the Moon! I went back inside and put on my eyeglasses and looked outside again. Now I could see that the Christmas Star really was the Moon.

I stepped further outside and walked down my sidewalk, looking at the sky. I didn't see any manner of Christmas Star, but I did see the constellation Orion, with it's easily recognizable Orion's Belt, and I could see the four corner stars in Orion. But there is far too much nighttime light pollution in my city for me (or anyone) to see more than a few stars, and that is a real shame. If I were to drive west to the mountains of southwest Virginia, away from cities, the sky would have thousands of bright stars. (I haven't actually counted them, so it might be hundreds. Either way, it's impressive.) I suspect people who live there take it for granted.

It is 11:55 PM and I'll have to hit the Publish button now while today is still the winter solstice, or else a blog post about the winter solstice won't be pertinent to the moment. If you badly wanted to see the Christmas Star and missed it, just go out and look up—if it's the 22nd. If it's not, then look again on the 23rd. It probably won't look much different than it does tonight. Happy star-gazing!