Google Doodle Celebrates Winter Solstice 2021

As we know that the search engine giant Google often comes up with its unique and quirky doodles on a number of occasions, this time it has again brought a new and interesting doodle to celebrate the Winter Solstice 2021, featuring a hedgehog in the snow.

The winter solstice is the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The day marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year.

Usually, winter solstice takes place between 19 December to 23 December, and this year (2021), it will be taking place on Tuesday 21 December at 9:28 pm.

Today, one of the Earth's poles will be tilted towards the Sun. This is why, at one of the poles, the day is shortest and night is the longest in a year.

From this day onwards, the day will start getting longer than the night in the Northern Hemisphere. However, this phenomenon takes a reverse manner for the people living in the Southern Hemisphere. People living in the Southern Hemisphere will be experiencing shorter days and longer nights until the Summer Solstice.

Another Great Event

The other great event which will be taking place this year is the conjunction of two pairs of planets; Mars and Saturn and Jupiter and Venus.

The conjunction of Mars and Saturn will take place on 5 April 2022 while the conjunction between Jupiter and Venus will take place on April 30 2022.

On this date, the rare double-planet sighting can be viewed from any part of the world as the two big planets of our solar system will be assigned in such a manner that they will seem to have come closer to each other. The two great planets will be 450 million miles apart and will still appear close to us.

So if you are an astronomy enthusiast and sky lover, then you need not miss this historical event. You will be able to see Mars like a bright star in the sky one hour after sunset in the south-west direction whereas Saturn will be seen above and slightly to the left of Mars. Saturn will be a bit fainter than Mars.