{"id":461449,"date":"2025-12-21T04:05:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T04:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/461449\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T04:05:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T04:05:12","slug":"cosmic-trifecta-winter-solstice-meteors-from-the-little-bear-alien-comet-passes-by-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/461449\/","title":{"rendered":"Cosmic trifecta: Winter Solstice, meteors from The Little Bear, \u2018Alien\u2019 comet passes by Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Astronomically speaking, this is the date and time of the Winter Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere and the Summer Solstice for the Southern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n


\n COMET 3I\/ATLAS was approximately 169,150,000 miles away traveling at approximately 125,000 mph when I imaged it early morning 12\/20\/25 . It was one day past its closest point of approach to Earth. (WTOP\/Greg Redfern)<\/p>\n


\n COMET 3I\/ATLAS was approximately 169,150,000 miles away traveling at approximately 125,000 mph when I imaged it early morning 12\/20\/25 . It was one day past its closest point of approach to Earth. (WTOP\/Greg Redfern)<\/p>\n

(Happy Birthday Carl Sagan)<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, astronomical winter officially arrives Dec. 21 at 10:03 a.m. EST.<\/p>\n

Astronomically speaking, this is the date and time of the Winter Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere and the Summer Solstice for the Southern Hemisphere<\/a>. We will have our longest night of the year and starting on Sunday the sun will start climbing higher in the sky each day with an ever-increasing length of daylight.<\/p>\n

The Earth\u2019s seasons \u2014 Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer \u2014 are caused by the Earth\u2019s orbit around the Sun and the 23 1\/2 degree tilt of our planet\u2019s axis<\/a>. This causes the amount of sunlight falling on the Earth\u2019s Northern and Southern Hemispheres to constantly change. The two hemispheres are always opposite in their seasons \u2014 our Fall is their Spring while our Summer is their Winter.<\/p>\n

If you are out enjoying the longest night of the year, the Ursid Meteor Shower<\/a> is predicted to peak on the night of Dec. 21 to dawn. There will be no moon to hamper the view.\n<\/p>\n

Early Saturday morning, with my Odyssey Pro smart telescope, I imaged Comet 3I\/ATLAS<\/a> in just 24 seconds, which means it is bright. A follow-on exposure of 5 minutes imaged the comet nicely. 3I was approximately 169,150,000 miles away, traveling at approximately 125,000 mph. It was one day past the closest point of approach to Earth. I was mesmerized looking at this interstellar comet, awed at its billions of years of age, wondering where it had traveled in our galaxy among the stars and where it would wonder in the future. What a universe.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 31, you will learn what my \u201cTop Space Story for 2025\u201d is and on Jan. 1, WTOP\u2019s monthly \u201cEyes on the Skies\u201d will kick off 2026.<\/p>\n

Wishing everyone Happy Holidays and Joyous New Year.<\/p>\n

Follow\u00a0my daily blog<\/a>\u00a0to keep up with the latest news in astronomy and space exploration. You can email me at\u00a0skyguyinva@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomically speaking, this is the date and time of the Winter Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere and the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":461450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[156714,114008,159,783,2522,114009,67,132,68,107016],"class_list":{"0":"post-461449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-comet-3i-atlas","9":"tag-greg-redfern","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space","12":"tag-summer-solstice","13":"tag-the-space-place","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-winter-solstice"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115755583436767139","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}