In this city, residents will be deprived of sunlight for 64 days and will therefore not see it again until next year! But why then?
It is a period feared by many which has just begun: certain places on the globe will be deprived of sun for several weeks! And for good reason, the polar night has begun. This is a phenomenon that occurs in the polar circles when the sun is below the horizon. In this city in a well-known country, for example, the sun will not rise for 64 days.
This November 18, 2024, the inhabitants of this city admired their last sunset before… the year 2025! The polar night now settles in this part of the globe until January 22. For the next few weeks, the sun will not rise above the horizon, so residents will have to live in relative darkness.
This is the village of Utqiagvik, located in Alaska, the largest state in the United States. This place, the northernmost in the country, inspired the fictional town of Ennis in the HBO series True Detective and won’t see the sun for a total of 64 days! The closer a place is to the North Pole, the longer this phenomenon lasts. Thus, in Norway, at the North Cape, the northernmost point of the globe, the polar night can last from the end of October to the beginning of February! This is also the ideal time to go hunting for the Northern Lights, since they are most visible when the sky is dark and clear.
But in these places, although the sun does not exceed the horizon for several weeks, a little brightness still persists during the (short) days. We sometimes witness phases of solar twilight, which last a few hours, during which the sky is often tinged with quite charming pink shades. While some fear the phenomenon of the polar night, which deprives us of sunlight, others are delighted to discover the sky taking on a unique atmosphere for a few weeks. Note that in summer, the opposite phenomenon occurs: the sun never goes below the horizon and does not set for 24 hours.
