Astronomical summer begins

Happy summer! Astronomical summer is here. The day of the summer solstice, usually features the longest day of the year.

The sun will not set north of the Arctic Circle today.

The sun simply circles the horizon as the Earth rotates.

Farther south, the sun will set at its northernmost point on the horizon. You may notice sun shining through windows in your house that usually don’t get any sunlight.

So what is going on? Is the Earth bouncing around on its axis to change the sun angle? NO

The Earth is permanently tilted as it orbits the sun. We know the Earth spins around an axis that extends from the North Pole to the South Pole, but that axis is tilted at 23.5 degrees.

So, it’s all about where the Earth is during its journey around the sun. Today, the axis of rotation points toward the sun. However, when the planet moves to the other side of the sun (aka winter solstice), that axis of rotation points away from the sun.

The farther north you are, the longer the day is. Let’s take a look at the day length in different parts of the world...

June 21st Solar Information Table

As a side note, today was not the longest day of the year in some cases. Since the solstice was at 12:24 a.m. daylight time, this is actually closer to sunset yesterday than sunrise today. So, yesterday was the longest day of the year in many locations!

Thanks for reading! Just look up, you never know what you will see!

Report a Typo