There’s a lot of fuss made about the summer solstice, but most people have no real idea about what it actually is. They might know that it is the longest day, and that people congregate around stone circles, but ask many people about why it’s the longest day and you’ll just get a strange look.
The answer is remarkably simple, as most people know, the Earth is tilted on its axis, i.e. a line through the Earth between the north and south poles isn’t perpendicular to the line around the Sun that the Earth follows through the year. This tilt means that in mid summer more of the northern hemisphere is facing the Sun than at other times of the year.
Where on the Earth is the Sun directly overhead at midday on June 21st, On the tropic of cancer, that’s what the tropics are, lines on maps that mark this extreme.
Why do so many people make a fuss about the solstice, and the two equinoxes as well. To be honest there’s no good reason to make a fuss, some like to remember the ancient religions with made up ceremonies but there no real grounds to do so, most ancient religions left no written records and there practices were made to sound abhorrent by the winners of the battles, especially by the Romans.
We live in a world that can’t even get the birth of Jesus at the correct time of year, so why make a fuss about the longest day? The reason is of course cultural, we’re human beings and any excuse for a good party is an excellent idea, but there are no astronomical reasons that make the solstice special. All my remarks apply to the northern hemisphere, in the south everything is 6 months different, our summer solstice is their winter solstice and vice versa, though there’s probably a lot less druids in Australia.
I’ll finish with a few words about astronomy, the mid summer is an awful time for observing, the skies don’t get truly dark until very late and not long after this the skies are starting to lighten from the early dawn. The most interesting thing recently was that Jupiter and Venus appeared to be near each other in the sky. Naturally this is just a line of sight effect Jupiter is one of the outer planets and never really gets close to Venus.
That’s all for this month, happy stargazing.

Charles Oates, Vega Baja Astronomy Group.

To find out more about observing and astronomy why not join our group, email us at vegabaja.astronomygroup@gmail.com for more information.