When is the winter solstice? At sunrise this morning, around 15,000 people gathered at Stonehenge – the world’s most famous Neolithic monument – to celebrate the arrival of astronomical winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

The 5,000-year-old stone circle in Wiltshire, England, UK, finds alignment on the day of the solstice each year, with sunrise appearing in the north-east directly over the Heel Stone on December 21 of that year. The event was broadcast live on YouTube by English Heritage, with the global solstice moment following shortly afterwards at 9:21 a.m. GMT (4:21 a.m. EST).

What does a solstice mean? The moment of solstice occurs when the sun reaches its southernmost point directly above the Tropic of Capricorn. At this moment, the sun appears to “stand still” before changing direction, a phenomenon reflected in the Latin roots of the word “solstice” – sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).

What happens on the solstice? The sun rises at its extreme northeastern position on the horizon of the year on the day of the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.

Why is December 21st the winter solstice? The December solstice occurs because Earth’s axis is tilted about 23.5 degrees from its orbit around the sun. On December 21st, the Northern Hemisphere is furthest from the sun, resulting in shorter daylight hours and colder temperatures. The sun appears lower in the sky and takes a shorter path through the sky.

This year the event coincided with new research suggesting that Stonehenge may have been built as a unifying landmark in prehistoric times. The new theory proposes that the monument’s stones, which came from distant regions, served as symbols of political alliances, possibly following civil unrest.

According to an article published in Archeology InternationalRather than being a temple, a calendar or an observatory – as many archaeologists have suspected – Stonehenge is political. “I think we just haven’t looked at Stonehenge properly,” said Mike Parker Pearson of University College London, the paper’s author The Guardian. “You really have to look at everything to figure out what they’re doing. They erect a monument that expresses the permanence of certain aspects of their world.” Solstice alignments may have a less important purpose.

Earlier this year, another scientific paper provided compelling evidence that Stonehenge’s central altar stone originally came from about 700 kilometers away in northern Scotland. In 2021, archaeologists identified the origin of the stone circle’s smaller bluestones as Pembrokeshire in Wales, about 180 miles (290 kilometers) west of Stonehenge.

I wish you big eyes and clear skies.