More sunlight on the way after passing of winter solstice

• Winter solstice happened morning of Dec. 21
• A pre-historic planetary collision made seasons
• Daylight lengthening speeds up around February

There’s light at the end of the tunnel, or in this case, solstice, for those tired of long, dark nights and short days.

The December solstice, marking the day with the shortest amount of sunlight, is Dec. 21.

“The solstice is a moment in time when the sun is farther south in our skies,” Jim Failes, a director with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Okanagan Centre (RASC) told Kelowna10.

“And that was [the morning of the 21] at 7:59 a.m., so we’re just past that and that means that henceforth, for the next six months, the period of daylight is going to get longer.”

The winter solstice is the point where the sun is at its most southerly point because the North Pole is angled away from the sun.

The Earth's axis is tilted relative to the plane of its orbit. Its pole is angled, compared to the relatively straight up-and-down poles like Jupiter and Venus.

The leading hypothesis for this tilt goes back to the early days of our solar system, billions of years ago, when massive amounts of debris were present.

The theory suggests a small planetary body slammed into the primitive Earth, tilting the axis and forming a ring of debris, which eventually coalesced into our moon.

If this collision hadn’t happened, Failes speculates the Earth would have an axis more like other planets.

In this scenario the length of days and nights throughout the year would be equal around the world. Because of the consistency, there would only be one season and no winter.

“Imagine that situation; if you were standing at the North Pole and the Earth’s axis wasn’t tilted, the sun would actually be right on your horizon, 24/7,” Failes said.

In winter, the North Pole, due to the tilt, is directed at the north star, formally called Polaris. This explains why Polaris seems to maintain its place in the heavens, useful for people who navigated via star charts.

Failes explained many of these concepts to Kelowna10 on Zoom using a globe.

As Earth moves beyond the winter solstice, it will begin to tilt the other direction, slowly gaining more daylight, before a rapid rise in February.

“It starts out very gradually. But then the speed of the lengthening of the days increases towards February and March. Then as we get towards June, things begin to slow down again and then the situation reverses again.”

-- This article was corrected on Dec. 22. The first is regarding the sun's position during the solstice. The sun is in fact further south in the sky during this period, not at its farthest point, which was originally stated. The second concerns the Earth's axis. It is tilted relative to the plane of its orbit, which is not entirely unique compared to other planets in the solar system, as originally stated.