What is a Polar Night?
Polar night refers to the longer-than-24-hour nights that occur seasonally on the Earth’s polar regions. Because the Earth’s axis is tipped 26 degrees with respect to the plane of the elliptic, there are parts of the poles whose rotation path never gets exposed to light. The North and South Poles are the darkest areas of all, which each receive six months of continuous night and six months of continuous day. The depth of the polar night in the polar regions is when the lowest temperatures on Earth have ever been recorded, 89 degrees Celsius below zero, or negative 128 degrees Fahrenheit, measured at Vostok Station, Antarctica. Without heavy furs, this can lead to death in under two minutes. The formal definition of the Arctic and Antarctic Circle has to do with polar night. Within the circle, there is at least one 24-hour period of complete darkness in the year, while outside it, darkness lasts less than 24 hours. Some far north and far south settlements experience very long nights, wi
