Latest sunset of the year is here
The summer solstice has passed, but sunsets are still getting later! In fact, parts of the U.S. will not experience their latest sunset until July 2!
Most of the lower 48 had their earliest sunrise about a week before the summer solstice. Why doesn't the earliest sunrise and latest sunset fall on the solstice?
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Every location in the Contiguous U.S. (Lower 48) has passed the date of the earliest sunrise of the year. However, there is a lag of 10-24 days between the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EquationOfTime?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#EquationOfTime</a> <a href="https://t.co/OHNklcco97">pic.twitter.com/OHNklcco97</a></p>— Brian Brettschneider (@Climatologist49) <a href="https://twitter.com/Climatologist49/status/1140752203637874689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Brian is a great follow on twitter! He has some really awesome and original maps you will not find anywhere else!
The short answer is because the Earth is not perfectly round and neither is the Earth's orbit around the sun. Plus, the Earth's speed changes slightly during it's orbit around the sun. So, solar noon is slightly later this time of the year than actual noon. This difference is described by the "Equation of Time" Read more about the equation of time on wikipedia.
This isn't exactly good news for astronomers. But, there is still plenty to see out there after sunset. According to spaceweather.com Noctilucent clouds were seen as far south as Las Vegas and Albuquerque Monday night! Check out this incredible image from Paris
Image courtesy of Kulik Bertrand via Spaceweather.com's Realtime NLC Gallery.
We are at peak season for Noctilucent clouds. Read more about these clouds in a recent blog post.
THanks for reading! Just look up; you never know what you will see!
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