Welcome! Today we'll discover why days become shorter during winter. The answer lies in Earth's tilted axis. Our planet is tilted at twenty-three point five degrees relative to its orbit around the sun. This tilt is the key to understanding seasonal changes in daylight hours.
As Earth travels around the sun in its yearly orbit, the planet's tilt remains constant. This means that during different parts of the year, each hemisphere receives varying amounts of direct sunlight. When the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, it experiences winter with shorter days.
During winter, your hemisphere is tilted away from the sun. This causes the sun to appear much lower in the sky throughout the day. The sunlight hits Earth at a shallow angle, and most importantly, the daylight portion of each day becomes significantly shorter than the nighttime hours.
Let's compare summer and winter side by side. In summer, when tilted toward the sun, we get long daylight hours with the sun high overhead. In winter, tilted away from the sun, we experience much shorter days with the sun staying low in the sky. This dramatic difference in daylight duration is what makes winter days feel so much shorter.
To summarize what we've learned: Earth's tilt of twenty-three point five degrees is responsible for our seasons. Winter days are shorter because your hemisphere tilts away from the sun, causing the sun to appear lower in the sky and reducing daylight hours. This same tilt mechanism explains why summer brings us longer, brighter days.