The Earth’s hemispheres function as a duality, while darkness and cold reign in one, while the warmth of the days dominates in the other. This is due to the tilt angle of the Earth and other elements that cause sunlight to fall differently on both sides of the equator. In the The southern hemisphere is close to entering the summer solstice of 2021, a date on which the longest day of the year occurswe explain what it consists of and when it occurs.
What is the summer solstice?
We have constantly learned that our planet is in motion all the time. While you are reading these lines we are moving at a very high speed and we are also turning. We are often taught that the Earth has two movements, the movement of rotation and the movement of translation, although in reality it is much more complex than that. It seems our planet likes to wobble like a top that doesn’t just spin, it wobbles. It has a total of five well-known movements, among which is the precession of the equinoxes.
The precession of the equinoxes is caused by the angle of inclination of the Earth which is not perfectly perpendicular to the ecliptic (imaginary line that crosses the Solar System horizontally), but has an angle of inclination of 23.5°. If we observed the Earth from space, we would see that it is tilted towards the Sun and in that sense, one of the hemispheres would receive more light than the other.
It is precisely this dynamic that occurs with precession, the movement responsible for the equinoxes and solstices that mark the beginning of the seasons of the year. The solstice, whose term comes from the Latin ‘solstium‘ which means ‘still sun’, marks the beginning of summer and/or winter, depending on the date and the geographic hemisphere.
In December the entry of the summer solstice occurs for the southern hemisphere, the day in which the light of the Sun extends for the longest time of the whole year. That is to say, it is the longest day of the entire period, until the astronomical phenomenon occurs again.
When will the summer solstice 2021 be in the southern hemisphere?
The official entry of summer (summer solstice) in the southern hemisphere, comes in the middle of December. Seasonal changes prepare to transform the length of day and night. Light reigns more and more with much longer days. Right at the very beginning of the summer solstice, the longest day of all occurs.
The The entry of the solstice will take place on December 21, 2021 at 15:50 UTC, the day summer officially begins for the southern hemisphere. The Sun’s rays will be completely vertical with respect to the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, which is why at the zenith, that is, when the Major Astro is in its highest position, the shadow of any object will have a null longitudinal component. The last solstice of the year is close to arriving and gives us the opportunity to reconnect with the cosmos, nature and the cycles of our planet.
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