Winter solstice 2017 celebrated by Google Doodle in Northern Hemisphere – and summer in the Southern Hemisphere
YESTERDAY marked the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the longest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere.
To celebrate the astronomical phenomenon of the solstices Google has created two of its famous Doodles. Here's the lowdown...
What are the winter and summer solstices?
The winter solstice is on December 21 and is the "shortest" day of the year and marks the start of the winter period.
This is because the tilt of the Earth’s axis is least aligned with the sun, providing us with the least daylight of the year.
After December 21, the nights will begin to get shorter as our planet rotates back towards the sun.
The date where Earth is the nearest to the star is marked by the summer solstice.
Is December 21 the summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere?
December 21 marks our winter solstice, but it's the summer solstice if you head beneath the equator.
In the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons are flipped compared to ours.
That means December, January and February are the height of summer in countries like Australia, New Zealand and South Africa - making them a popular holiday destination for sunseekers.
So the December 21 solstice falls in the middle of their summer, while the June solstice is their winter.
more on google doodles
What is a Google Doodle?
In 1998, the search engine founders Larry and Sergey drew a stick figure behind the second 'o' of Google as a message to that they were out of office at the Burning Man festival and with that, Google Doodles were born.
The company decided that they should decorate the logo to mark cultural moments and it soon became clear that users really enjoyed the change to the Google homepage.
In that same year, a turkey was added to Thanksgiving and two pumpkins appeared as the 'o's for Halloween the following year.
Now, there is a full team of doodlers, illustrators, graphic designers, animators and classically trained artists who help create what you see on those days.
In September, a Google Doodle celebrated the 2017 Autumn Equinox, which marked the official ending of summer and the coming of autumn.