The longest day of the year, the first day of summer, has arrived. Ah, sit back and relax, starting tomorrow the days begin to get shorter and school is here before we know it. Of course, the longest day is not more than 24 hours, but it gives us in the Northern Hemisphere the sun for the longest period of time. It appears to us Earthlings at its most northern point. At the North Pole, nearly the entire day is bathed in sunlight. Some years ago my youngest brother pitched summer baseball with the North Pole Nicks in North Pole, Alaska. The big game was on the Summer Solstice and played at midnight without lights! You can guess what the shortest day of the year brings the folks up north–darkness.
See NASA’s Solstice Animation –what the Earth would look like on the Summer Solstice if you were standing on the Sun!
The spin axis of our planet is tilted 23.5 degrees with respect to Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The northern summer solstice is an instant in time when the north pole of the Earth points more directly toward the Sun than at any other time of the year. It marks the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere.
A few children’s titles come up with a keyword search, summer solstice, at the San Francisco Public Library: The Summer Solstice by Ellen Jackson, The Longest Day by Wendy Pfeffer, Mermaid Dance by Marjorie Rose Hakala, and Mermaids on Parade by Melanie Hope Greenberg.
Visit StarDate Online from the University of Texas at Austin MacDonald Observatory to get the latest Summer Solstice news for 2011. Enjoy your summer! SSPP Reads will post around the Fourth of July.
Graphic from Flickr Creative Commons License by nyaa birdies perch
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