Winter Solstice

According to a chart I found, the Winter Solstice is occuring nearly as I type this, at 12:30 Central Time. You can find more about the solstice on Wikipedia, including the fact that during the Northern Hemisphere's winter, we are actually closer to the sun than in the summer; it's the angle of the sun's rays, not the distance from the sun, that makes weather colder. (Lest you scoff at my using Wikipedia as a legitimate source, I'll have you know that the journal Nature recently found that Wikipedia was roughly as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica when it came to science articles.)

I'm always relieved to know it's only going to get lighter for the next 6 months.

Breakthrough is another lovely picture from curiouskiwi on flickr.com.