06/22/2020- Ephemeris – Summer has begun

This is Ephemeris for Monday, June 22nd. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 9:32, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:57. The Moon, 1 day past new, will set at 11:04 this evening.

On Friday’s program I was way too busy with the summer solstice and the annular eclipse in Asia to properly give summer its due, so here goes. Last Saturday the northern end of the Earth’s axis was tilted toward the Sun to its maximum extent, giving the northern hemisphere its most direct sunlight, and the longest daylight hours. North of the arctic circle of 66 ½ degrees latitude got 24 hours of daylight, and the north pole midday in its six months of continuous sunlight. At the south pole it’s literally midnight of its six months night. The northern hemisphere got its greatest amount of heat from the Sun that day, however this part of the Earth is still warming up, so our hottest days average in late July when the shortening daylight hours and the lowering of the Sun in the south can’t maintain the heat anymore and we begin to cool.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Earth’s position at the solstices and equinoxes. This is an not to scale oblique look at the Earth’s orbit, which is nearly circular. The Earth is actually farthest from the Sun on July 4th. Click on the image to enlarge. Credit: ESO (European Southern Observatory which explains the captions in German and English.

Comparing the sun’s path at the summer and winter solstices. This is a stereographic representation of the whole sky which distorts the sky and magnifies the size of the sun’s path near the horizon.