When is the Summer Solstice 2024?
Summer Solstice 2024 is happening on different days every year, and it is when the Earth experiences a “longer” day than the other days of the year.
This year, the Northern Hemisphere will experience the summer solstice on June 20, 2024, while those in the Southern Hemisphere, will experience it on Dec. 21, 2024. Based on the article in Treehugger, this is called the “longest day of the year.”
However, technically speaking, this is not the longest day because all days have similar hours. It just so happened that during the summer solstice, it has the most hours of sunlight but it cannot be considered as the the hottest day of the year.
The opposite of this is the most winter solstice. It is when the “southernmost point and is low in the sky. Its rays hit the Northern Hemisphere at an oblique angle, creating the feeble winter sunlight,” as stated in Old Farmer’s Almanac.
The summer solstice only happens for a moment. It is when the sun directly overhead the Tropic of Cancer at noon. It is called the Tropic of Cancer because the sun appeared in the constellation Cancer. However, this name is no longer accurate nowadays because of the shifting of the Earth’s axis. In recent years, the sun now appears in the constellation Taurus.
This natural happening is a big deal at Stonehenge. There are several stories about why this prehistoric monument was made. The widely accepted belief is that it was a temple aligned with the movements of the sun.
Every year, thousands of people gather at the monument, and some are even sometimes dressed in Druid attire, to mark the moment in June of summer solstice.
It is not only the Earth that has summer solstice. Mars and Earth had solstices that fell within a few days of each other and this was recorded in 2016. The reason behind this was the eccentric orbit of Mars.
One of the most-awaited phenomena that amazes many people also is the Solar Eclipse.