Evenings are long these days. You’ll have to wait until after 9:30pm or so to catch the Moon above Mars on the 16th and Saturn on the 18th, but for a good reason. On the afternoon of June 20th, at precisely 4:33:39 Yorkton time, Summer Solstice will occur in the northern hemisphere.
On the Solstice, the Sun will be in the sky for 16 hours, 35 minutes and 6 seconds, the most this year. By comparison, that’s 8 hours and 42 minutes longer than at the winter solstice last December. It’s like getting a whole free day.
However, solstices do not mark the earliest sunrise nor the latest sunset of the year. The earliest sunrise this year was on the morning of June 16th, where the Sun broke through your bedroom window at 4:34am. However, for those trying to finish their evening golf game in the twilight, the latest sunset of the year is on June 24th when the Sun doesn’t set until 09:10.
The word ‘solstice’ is an astronomical term derived from the Latin ‘sol’ (sun) and ‘sistere’ (to stand still), because on the Solstices, the Sun appears to stand still before reversing direction. On the Solstice, the Sun rises further in the northeast and sets further in the northwest than at any other time. As well, shadows cast at noon are as short as they can get because this day marks the Sun’s highest point in the sky for the year. For those living at the latitude of the Tropic of Cancer (just south of Key West, Florida), the Sun will be directly overhead, meaning they will have no shadows at all, no matter how hard they look.
Speaking of the Tropic of Cancer, the name was given, some 2000 years ago, to the line on the Earth that marks the furthest point north that the Sun reaches on the summer solstice before turning back south. The word ‘Tropic’ comes from the Greek ‘tropos’, meaning ‘turn’, and Cancer was the constellation the Sun was in at the time. Similarly, the winter solstice is marked by the Tropic of Capricorn, because at the time the Sun was in, you guessed it, Capricorn. Current solstices occur with the Sun in neither constellation, but the traditional names for the lines have stuck.
While we now pass the day off as a mere curiosity, solstices used to be a big deal. The ancient, mainly European celebration of Midsummer’s Day centers around June 24th, and the familiar date of December 25th originally marked the start of a pagan festival celebrating the winter solstice in pre-Christian times.
Summer Solstice is bitter sweet; the next day is already shorter and (shudder) winter that much closer. So, make your time count. With the caterpillars on their way out, it’s time to make the most of those long days and evenings in our own back yards.
