Summer Solstice

If you look outside it is quite light enough to putter in your garden, cut the grass, plow a field or read a book.  That is because today is the summer solstice.

The cause of all of this daylight is a consequence of the Northern Hemisphere dipping toward the sun allowing our northern half of Mother Earth to bathe in direct sunlight for longer than any other day of the year.  Our neighbors to the north (including the state of Alaska) are going to enjoy anywhere from sixteen to twenty-four hours of sunlight.

The solstice occurs because Earth does not spin upright, but leans 23.5 degrees on a tilted axis.  Astronomers have long wondered if our Neolithic ancestors constructed the monuments at Stonehenge to mark events like today.  Or maybe - as the scientists contend - the tilting of the sun contributed to creating the conditions for life here on our Third Rock from the sun.  Me?  I'm going to sit on my porch and enjoy a Merlot with the girls in my  life.  Ponder that. 

Learn more about this astronomical phenomenon here…