Three Surprising Facts about New Year’s 2025
By Dean Clark. Published 30-Dec-2024
The stroke of midnight December 31 brings a deceptive count, a dose of Sun confusion, and multiple midnights to the occasion.
More than champagne and fireworks: science, history, and geography come into play this New Year’s Eve.
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2025 will ring in with the usual fanfare, but there are some surprising facts about the date shift that many people aren’t aware of.
The Quarter-Century Party Is Next Year
It hasn’t been a quarter century since the millennium yet.
Why not? To find the answer, we have to recall the biggest New Year’s party many of us can remember, then go even further back to the 6th century CE.
Most of us thought we were ringing in the new millennium on New Year’s Eve 2000, because the Gregorian calendar told us that midnight on that date meant ticking over from 1999 to 2000 CE.
But that idea is based on the (false) notion that a Year 0 existed. If it did, 2000 years would indeed have passed at the stroke of midnight December 31, 1999.
Experts, historians, and other sticklers for accuracy are sure that Year 0 did not exist. The year numbering system we use today was created by a 6th-century monk called Dionysius Exiguus who used Roman numerals to identify the years, and there is no Roman numeral for 0. In his system, Year 1 BCE was followed by Year 1 CE.
So twenty-five years, or a quarter century since the new millennium, will actually pass at midnight on December 31, 2025.
When does the next decade start?
The Sun Is Closest around New Year
New Year’s is in the middle of winter! How can the Sun be at its closest point to the Earth at that time of year?
It seems counter-intuitive. For the Northern Hemisphere, winter means temperatures drop, but in that cold season, our planet is actually closer to the Sun than at any other time of the year.
The Sun is actually closer to the Earth during the Northern Hemisphere’s winter months.
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The reality is that Earth’s distance to the Sun doesn’t cause seasons. Earth actually reaches its perihelion, or closest point to the Sun, around the Northern Hemisphere’s winter solstice, and its aphelion, or furthest distance, around the North’s summer solstice.
Interestingly, in a few thousand years, this will change. Graham Jones of timeanddate explains: “The main calendar we use today—the Gregorian calendar of 365 days plus the occasional leap day—was designed so that the seasons always happen around the same dates.
The calendar doesn’t take account of Earth’s distance from the Sun, so the date of perihelion slowly drifts over time. For example, two thousand years from now, perihelion will happen around the beginning of February.”
You Can Celebrate New Year’s Twice (or Thrice)
There are places you can celebrate multiple midnights on December 31.
If you really love that cork-popping moment when the New Year begins, there are locations on the planet where you can experience more than one midnight on the same evening by simply taking a short walk.
By taking advantage of quirks in time zones or the International Date Line, you can ring in the New Year, take a stroll (or get on a plane in some places), and have the chance to celebrate the same midnight all over again.
One of the best spots to do that is Cameron Corner, a remote settlement in the Australian outback, where three time zones come together. At that little-known junction, you can experience midnight, take a few steps, enjoy a second celebration 30 minutes later, and, after a short walk, enter a third time zone for your final New Year’s moment of the evening.