What is Summer Solstice?

To the best of my knowledge, the summer solstice, or perhaps the estival solstice, which is also known as the midsummer, occurs when one of the earth’s poles is tilted towards the sun. It happens about twice in a year and once in each of the hemispheres. From an article I once read, the summer solstice occurs when the sun is at its highest or perhaps the day with the longest period of daylight.

Within either the northern or the southern hemisphere, there’s steady and continuous daylight around the summer solstice, as such, the axial earth tilt towards the sun at about 23.44 degrees; in the same light, the sun’s declination from the celestial equator is about 23.44 degrees. The summer solstice, in most cases, occurs during summer, most times around June in the northern hemisphere and December in the southern hemisphere, depending on the shift in the year’s calendar.

The summer solstice is the time that celebrates the coming of summer. This happens when one of the Earth’s poles tilts towards the sun in a maximum manner. This can only happen twice a year and only once for each hemisphere. This explains why there are a lot of people who look forward to this. They want to experience the time when the sky will experience the longest period of daylight available.

The summer solstice is the opposite of winter solstice wherein the day tends to be very short because this is the time when the Earth is usually the farthest from the sun. Some people also look forward to this, especially those who do not like the summer season.

Summer solstice originates from the Latin words “sol” and “sistere”. Sol means “Sun” and sistere means “stationary” or “to stop”. Summer solstice occurs when the Earth is farthest position around the sun with axial angle of about 22.4 degrees. This causes the Sun to heat the Earth directly. The effect of this is that, we have longer days in the year.

This usually happen once in a year. The Northern hemisphere experiences this once and same happens in the Southern hemisphere. This usually happen around 20 – 22nd of June in the northern hemisphere and 20 – 22nd off December in the Southern hemisphere.