It reflects the 23.5° tilt of the Earth compared to the path the planet traces around the Sun (the 'ecliptic plane'). Globes are nearly always tilted to one side, and it is for more than aesthetic reasons. You don't need to fly far out into space for this, fortunately. The best way to see the reason for this pattern is to look at how our planet orients with respect to the solar system and the Sun. These locations still draw significant crowds as we transition between seasons - at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and the winter and summer solstices.
Throughout human history, those people that tracked the motions of the Sun, the Moon, the planets and stars, noticed that year-by-year, those objects would trace very specific, repeating paths.Īncient monuments like Stonehenge, the temple of Karnak in Egypt, and Chichen Itza in Mexico are just a few that were built to form specific alignments with this pattern in the sky. The official 'pause' of the Sun, in 2020, was on June 20, at 5:43 p.m. The colours are a result of chemical reactions in the film paper, due to extreme overexposure, weather (humidity, rain), dirt, fungi, etc. Thus, with one image, we can see the motion of the Sun in the sky from the end of meteorological winter until the summer solstice.Īccording to Culp, the breaks in the curves are caused by cloudy periods during that particular day. The image above is an example of solargraphy, wherein photographer Bret Culp placed a small pinhole camera in a secluded area, with a view of downtown Toronto, and left it there for nearly four months in winter and spring 2016.Īs the Sun tracked from horizon to horizon, getting higher and higher in the sky each day, the pinhole projection of the Sun onto the film at the back of the camera traced the same path. Credit: Bret Culp - Used with permission. The Sun traces its way across the sky, higher and higher, between February 28 and June 20, 2016. At which point, it 'pauses' again, before it begins climbing higher in the sky again. On the day of the summer solstice, the Sun 'pauses', before it sinks a bit lower in the sky on each successive day between the summer solstice and the winter solstice. It refers to how the Sun appears to 'stop' or 'pause' in the sky on this day.Įach successive day between the winter solstice and the summer solstice, the Sun appears to have climbed a little bit higher in the sky. The word 'solstice' comes from the Latin word solstitium, which basically means "Sun ( sol) stoppage ( stitium)". This is due to the northern and southern hemispheres experiencing opposite seasons, no matter what time of year it is.
It should be noted that, if you are in the southern hemisphere, June 20 is the winter solstice, the first day of winter, and the shortest day of the year. Why is this day so special, though? OPPOSITE DAY Saturday, June 20, was the summer solstice for 2020 - the official first day of summer in the northern hemisphere and the longest day of the year for this half of the planet.
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