Ephemeris: 06/20/2024 – Summer starts this afternoon
This is Ephemeris for Thursday, June 20th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 9:31, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:57. The Moon, 1 day before full, will set at 4:59 tomorrow morning.
Well, this is it, the summer solstice! Summer will begin at 4:51 this afternoon. In the Southern Hemisphere the season of winter will begin, and the South Pole of the Earth in the middle of its six months of darkness. Maybe we should call it the June solstice, because winter also begins in the Southern Hemisphere. The north above 66 ½ degrees north latitude is the land of the midnight Sun. Over summer that line will creep northward as the Sun heads southward. The seasons are caused by the tilt of the Earth’s axis, not by the Earth’s change in distance from the Sun. In fact, we are approaching our farthest distance from the Sun, of about 94.5 million miles (152 million kilometers) on July 5th, called aphelion. The greater than normal distance makes summer the longest season at 93.7 days, winter being the shortest at 89 days. The Sun will be at its highest, of just under 69 degrees altitude at 1:44 pm for the Interlochen/Traverse City area, and about a degree lower than that in the Straits area, though their daylight hours will be 12 minutes longer.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT–4 hours). They may be different for your location.