<\/p>
Sometimes the anticipation that builds up throughout the day on Christmas Eve can be too much to bear: Where\u2019s Santa now? When will I get my presents? Is his journey going smoothly?<\/p>\n
Well fear not, NORAD\u2019s Santa Tracker<\/a> has got your back.<\/p>\n Kicking off at 11pm GMT on 23 December, website visitors can watch Santa make preparations for his flight as NORAD\u2019s Santa Cams will stream videos on the website as Santa sleighs his way to various locations. Then, anytime on 24 December trackers worldwide access the website or Android or Apple apps to see a constantly updated stream of Santa\u2019s location. Amazon Alexa users can also ask for Santa\u2019s location through the NORAD Tracks Santa skill for Amazon Alexa.<\/p>\n Read more about Christmas:<\/strong><\/p>\n The website also features Santa\u2019s North Pole Village, which includes a holiday countdown, games, cinema, holiday music and webstore, and is available in eight languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Chinese.<\/p>\n The Santa tracking tradition began in 1955 when an advert in a local newspaper informed children they could call Santa directly. However, the paper had printed the contact number incorrectly and instead of reaching Santa, the phone rang through to the crew commander on duty, U.S. Air Force Colonel Harry Shoup, at the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center, the predecessor to NORAD.<\/p>\n Quickly realising what had happened, Col Shoup played along and assured the child he was Santa. He then assigned a duty officer to continue answering calls. Every year since, NORAD has reported Santa\u2019s location on 24 December to millions of children and families around the world.<\/p>\n To track Santa either head to the NORAD Tracks Santa website<\/a>, or download the app from the Apple App Store<\/a> or the Google Play Store<\/a>. The service is live now so parents and children can count down the days until Santa\u2019s launch.<\/p>\n According to Arnold Pompos of Purdue University, Father Christmas would have to travel a total of 160,000,000km \u2013 further than the distance from the Earth to the Sun \u2013 to visit 800 million children in 200 million homes spread over 3x1013m2 of land around \u2028the world. He would have about 10 hours, from 8pm \u2028to 6am, to deliver the presents. Luckily, children happen to be spread across \u2028a wide range of time zones, buying Santa an additional 24 hours.<\/p>\n Even so, covering this distance in 34 hours is certainly no mean feat. Crunching the figures, we get a speed of 4,705,882km\/h, far slower than the speed \u2028of light, but still fast enough that the air resistance is likely to vaporise Santa, along with all the children\u2019s gifts\u2026 if he wasn\u2019t riding a magic sleigh.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> <\/body><\/html>\n By Jason Goodyer Published: Saturday, 03 December 2022 at 12:00 am Sometimes the anticipation that builds up throughout the day on Christmas Eve can be too much to bear: Where\u2019s Santa now? When will I get my presents? Is his journey going smoothly? Well fear not, NORAD\u2019s Santa Tracker has got your back. Kicking off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":21041,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/12\/follow-father-christmas-around-the-globe-this-christmas-eve-with-norads-santa-tracker.jpg",940,536,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/12\/follow-father-christmas-around-the-globe-this-christmas-eve-with-norads-santa-tracker-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/12\/follow-father-christmas-around-the-globe-this-christmas-eve-with-norads-santa-tracker-300x171.jpg",300,171,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/12\/follow-father-christmas-around-the-globe-this-christmas-eve-with-norads-santa-tracker-768x438.jpg",768,438,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/12\/follow-father-christmas-around-the-globe-this-christmas-eve-with-norads-santa-tracker.jpg",800,456,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/12\/follow-father-christmas-around-the-globe-this-christmas-eve-with-norads-santa-tracker.jpg",940,536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/12\/follow-father-christmas-around-the-globe-this-christmas-eve-with-norads-santa-tracker.jpg",940,536,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Jason Goodyer Published: Saturday, 03 December 2022 at 12:00 am Sometimes the anticipation that builds up throughout the day on Christmas Eve can be too much to bear: Where\u2019s Santa now? When will I get my presents? Is his journey going smoothly? Well fear not, NORAD\u2019s Santa Tracker has got your back. Kicking off…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/21040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Q&A: How fast would Santa have to travel to visit every child in the world?<\/h4>\n
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