The longest day of the year.
Coincidentally, it is also the day la fête de la musique is celebrated in France, especially Paris, la capitale de l'Art.
Yet the celebration of the Summer Solstice is a universal phenomenon of joy and cheer as people rejoice nature's official marker of the beginning of summer.
The history of the commemoration of the Summer Solstice dates back to over 5,000 years ago when "people placed huge stones in a circle on a broad plain in what’s now England and aligned them with the June solstice sunrise".
The Stonehenge now a magnificent tourist attraction hewn in stone is a living memoir of such festivities.
"We may never comprehend the full significance of Stonehenge. But we do know that knowledge of this sort wasn’t isolated to just one part of the world. Around the same time Stonehenge was being constructed in England, two great pyramids and then the Sphinx were built on Egyptian sands. If you stood at the Sphinx on June 21 and gazed toward the two pyramids, you’d see the sun set exactly between them."
The Summer Solstice is supposed to be the longest and hottest day of the year.
"This solstice takes place on Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 5:46 Universal Time."
"The earliest humans knew that the sun’s path across the sky, the length of daylight, and the location of the sunrise and sunset all shifted in a regular way throughout the year.
They built monuments, such as Stonehenge, to follow the sun’s yearly progress.
Today, we know that the solstice is an astronomical event, caused by Earth’s tilt on its axis, and its motion in orbit around the sun.
Because Earth doesn’t orbit upright, but is instead tilted on its axis by 23-and-a-half degrees, Earth’s northern and southern hemispheres trade places in receiving the sun’s light and warmth most directly.
At the June solstice, Earth is positioned in its orbit so that the North Pole is leaning 23-and-a-half degrees toward the sun. As seen from Earth, the sun is directly overhead at noon 23-and-a-half degrees north of the equator, at an imaginary line encircling the globe known as the Tropic of Cancer. This is as far north as the sun ever gets.
All locations north of the equator have day lengths greater than 12 hours at the June solstice. Meanwhile, all locations south of the equator have day lengths less than 12 hours."
Parts of this post have been taken from http://www.earthsky.org/article/49667/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-solstice-on-june-21
Hope you enjoy your longest day out!
Pack the sunscreen, get out the shades and head on out to the Stonehenge and party the day away while it lasts!
Blog Bubble: The sunrise and sunset of the Summer Solstice are one of the most beautiful spectacles that nature conjures every year. You don't won't to miss it! So set your sundials!
No comments:
Post a Comment