BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Longest Day (northern hemisphere)

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Summer in the northern hemisphere - it's almost here.

The days between the spring equinox and the arrival of the solstice are marked by astronomical events, discoveries, and birthdays. Here's a little quiz for you that picks out some of the highlights.

March Equinox to June Solstice
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Oh well Mona,

I got one out of ten. And I didn't use Dr. Google either! I knew the answer to question 5 was Yuri Gagarin because on that same day, on a small plot on a farm in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), three excited kids (I was one of them) got a new puppy and in Yuri's honour we called him Sputnik. Oh how I loved that puppy!

I just realised that you can learn a lot when you don't now the answers to a quiz.

Thanks

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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.
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The year is flying by. We are so consumed with crazy news here, no one mentioned the summer solstice had arrived. I remember going to Newgrange. Awesome!

Wow! Newgrange. Fantastic.

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The calendar gives us the day of a solstice. But astronomically, a solstice occurs when the Sun reaches its greatest distance north or south of the Equator. This year that happens at 14:57 UTC [2:57 PM].

"UTC is the time standard commonly used across the world. The world's timing centers have agreed to keep their time scales closely synchronized - or coordinated - therefore the name Coordinated Universal Time." {Time & Date]

When summer time isn't in effect, UTC is easy for people who are on Greenwich Mean Time, because that coincides with UTC. On summer time, people in that time zone are an hour later than UTC.
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Sunrise at Stonehenge on the Solstice day
Photo: DANIEL LEAL, AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Sunrise at Stonehenge

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Not everyone experienced the summer solstice yesterday. Our friends in the southern hemisphere had their winter solstice and shortest day.

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.

Winter Solstice
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Funny, I just mentioned the fact that in South America they are entering Winter. When we were in Antarctica in January it was summer.