Summer Solstice

image taken 21 June 2006, © Pete Strasser

Happy Solstice hippies! For everyone else, today was Summer solstice, Solstitum, Xiazhi, Shakesepeare’s midsummer; or specifically, the day when the Sun reaches a celestial longitude of 90 degrees and the longest period of daylight in the Northern Hemisphere, thus marking the first day of summer.

Solstice officially began at 12:26 GMT today (8:26 a.m. EST & 5:26 a.m. PST) and concludes the 7th of July. While it isn’t celebrated much in the US, thousands of people gathered today at Stonehenge dancing and drumming, shouting “feel the solstice!”, even though the passing of time has rendered the monument astronomically insignificant.

ARTICLE [Summer solstice] (Wikipedia) ARTICLE [Stonehenge revellers ‘feel the solstice’] (The Star) LINK/BUY [Stonehenge pocketwatch] (via Boing Boing)