What to Know About the Summer Solstice 2021- 'Longest Day of the Year'

The longest day of the year which falls today, Monday, June 21 is also known as the "summer solstice".

Summer Solstice is observed on the day when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer at noon and the summer starts from this day and goes on until equinox.

Notably, the solstice happens twice a year- the first happens in June and the second one takes place in December. The solstice that occurs in December is called the Winter Solstice.

The Northern Hemisphere of the Earth gets an increased amount of sunlight from March to September. As a result, those who stay in the Northern Hemisphere experience summer during this period of time. At the time of solstice Earth's axis is tilted in a manner that the North Pole is tipped towards the sun. As per the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Earth gets 30% more energy from the sun on the North Pole in comparison to the Equator on this day.

What is a solstice?

Ancient cultures knew that the sun's path across the sky, the length of daylight, and the location of the sunrise and sunset all shifted in a regular way throughout the year.

They built monuments, such as Stonehenge, to follow the sun's yearly progress. Today, we know that a solstice is an astronomical event, caused by Earth's tilt on its axis and its motion in orbit around the sun.

When is the June solstice where I live?

Here's an example of how to do that. In the central United States, for those of us using Central Daylight Time, we subtract five hours from Universal Time. Subtracting 5 hours from 03:32 gives us a negative number because the solstice happens on the previous calendar date relative to UTC. Whenever you face this dilemma, you can always add 24 hours to UTC to get 27:32 (03:32 + 24 = 27:32), and then subtract 5 hours to get 22:32 (10:32 p.m.) the previous date.

Is the solstice the first day of summer?

No world body has designated an official day to start each new season, and different schools of thought or traditions define the seasons in different ways.

Yet June 21 is perhaps the most widely recognized day upon which summer begins in the Northern Hemisphere and upon which winter begins on the southern half of Earth's globe. There's nothing official about it, but it's such a long-held tradition that we all recognize it to be so.

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