Astronomical winter officially begins today on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. But what does that mean?

Daylight during the winter solstice is actually a whopping nine hours shorter than what we see during the summer solstice.

On the summer solstice, we tend to see around 16 hours 38 minutes of daylight, whereas we see a very meagre 7 hours 50 minutes of daylight on the winter solstice - 7 hours, 49 minutes and 42 seconds this year to be precise. But, at least the days will start to get a little longer from then on!

While the winter solstice is widely known as the shortest day of the year, did you know that it actually happens at a precise time in the day, but not at the same time every year?

This year the winter solstice will occur at 9:48pm on December 21st in the UK and Ireland, whereas last year, it was at 3:58pm. This means from tomorrow, our days will get longer and lighter!

The winter solstice may also not occur on the same date. Although the December 21st is the most common, it can happen anytime between December 20th-23rd . The last winter solstice on December 23rd was in 1903. This date won't happen again until 2303.