MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/. The Sun will go down in Moscow as early as in 03:58 p.m. (GMT 01:58 p.m.) on the first day of the astronomical winter, astronomer Lyudmila Koshman of the Moscow Planetarium told TASS.
The coming night will be the longest in 2025 and will last for seventeen hours, the astronomer said. The astronomical winter will come to the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth at 06:03 p.m. Moscow time (GMT 03:03 p.m.)., when the winter solstice will occur. The Sun will reach at that moment the most remote position from the celestial equator towards the South Pole. The astronomical summer will come at that moment in the Southern Hemisphere.
"The shortest daylight hours and the longest night are being observed in the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth," Koshman said.
Polyarnye Zori, the satellite town of the Kola Nuclear Power Plant in the Murmansk Region, will be the place with the shortest daylight hours in Russia on Sunday, just eighteen minutes. December is the time for the polar night in the North of the Arctic Circle, while the polar day will be near the South Pole.