BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Happy June Solstice

For people in the northern hemisphere, the summer solstice is just around the corner. Being on a weekend, I imagine those who celebrate it are going to be having a rollicking good time.

You can read about Summer Solstice - St. John's Day:
Each day for six months after the winter solstice, the Sun rises a bit higher in the sky. It reaches the maximum height at the summer solstice, the longest day. Evidence of rituals and festivals at the times of the solstices goes back thousands of years.

For people in the southern hemisphere, tomorrow will be the winter solstice. The shortest day can be dreary, and the days don't really seem substantially longer for another month. But things will be looking up!

You can read here about the Winter Solstice:
For six months, each day has been shorter than the last, the Sun lower in the sky. Will it disappear altogether and leave the people bereft in the dark cold winter? The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year and is associated with more festivals than any other astronomical event.

This is one of my favorite summer solstice pictures. It's a wonderfully atmospheric solstice sunrise at Stonehenge taken by my friend Max Alexander.

Great pic! This would make a wonderful postcard.

There was a beautiful solstice sunrise at Stonehenge this morning. About 23,000 people were there to watch it.

The actual solstice is now past. That was the moment that the Sun crossed the celestial equator from south to north. It occurred at 16:38 UTC. That's 5:38 PM BST, 12:38 EDT, 9:38 PDT.