Daily Quiz | On Winter Solstice
Gravity causes the orientation of the tilt of the earth’s axis of rotation (in red) to slowly change over time. The orientation completes a full circle (in white) once every 26,000 years. This is why the dates of the earth’s solstices fall later over time.
START THE QUIZ
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In the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice is the moment when the earth’s _____ ____ is pointed the farthest away from the sun. Fill in the blanks.
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If you observe the sun in the sky every day at the same mean solar time, its locations will appear to trace a figure-eight path. The sun will attain its highest point in this pattern on the day of the summer solstice and its lowest point on the day of the winter solstice. What is this figure-eight diagram called?
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Given its location, the continent of Antarctica experiences six months of darkness during its winter. On the date of its winter solstice, also called midwinter because it falls at the middle of this dark period, people on the continent – including research stations there – celebrate Midwinter Day. What is the date?
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Name the festival celebrated across India in January that coincides roughly with the sun completing its winter solstice and moving, in the sky, from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius to that of Capricorn.
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X is a monument, specifically a passage tomb, in County Meath, Ireland, built around 3200 BC. It’s a World Heritage Site as well as a famous example of archaeoastronomy, which is the study of how premodern societies studied astronomy and made astronomical observations. This is so because light from sunrise enters the inner chamber of X only on the day of the winter solstice. Name X.
