The Alaskan town of Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow), home to about 4,600 residents, recorded its final sunset of the year on Tuesday (November 18) and entered “polar night". The polar night is a stretch of roughly 65 days without direct sunlight.

Situated roughly 483 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, this northernmost community in North America will remain in prolonged darkness because the Northern Hemisphere tilts away from the sun between the September and March equinoxes, causing daylight at far-northern latitudes to gradually fade and reach its extremity around the December solstice.

During this period the only light comes from faint twilight near the southern horizon, and the occasional glow of the Aurora Borealis overhead offers a small source of illumination.

The next s

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