11/30/2025
🌑❄️ Polar Night Has Officially Begun in Alaska — 66 Days Without a Sunrise 🌌
Would you survive more than two months without the sun? Because starting now, the people of Utqiagvik, Alaska — the northernmost town in the United States — have entered their annual stretch of 66 straight days of darkness.
This phenomenon, known as polar night, happens when Earth’s tilt pushes Arctic regions into a winter shadow so deep that the sun never rises above the horizon. From now until January 23, Utqiagvik won’t see a single sunrise… not even a sliver.
But it’s not pitch-black 24/7. Each day brings a brief window of civil twilight, casting a dim blue glow over the snow — just enough to outline the world before it fades again. Still, the long sunless stretch can challenge mood, sleep, energy, and health, especially with little natural vitamin D to rely on.
Yet for locals, this isn’t a crisis — it’s a season. Life continues, lights stay warm in windows, and the Arctic sky often rewards them with auroras, stars, and stillness that few places on Earth can match. And when the darkness ends? Utqiagvik flips into the opposite extreme: 24 hours of daylight from mid-May to mid-August, known as the midnight sun.
In the grand balance of our tilted planet, every place receives about the same sunlight over a year — but nowhere feels that trade-off as intensely as the Arctic Circle. For the residents of Utqiagvik, polar night isn’t something to fear… it’s simply a way of life at the edge of the world. 🌘✨
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