The Things You Might Not Know About The Summer Solstice

There’s something about summer that hits so differently from other seasons in the year. Plenty of people start to feel happier as the sun shines for longer and the temperatures heat up, with the season bringing plenty of reasons to get out and about with our friends. That’s not all.

Summer also brings the summer solstice, aka the longest day of the year we get in the Northern Hemisphere. While many of us have heard about it, the things you might not know about the summer solstice prove there’s a lot more to the day than just the amount of time the sun spends in the sky.

The summer solstice was named as the sun appears to stay still

Have you ever wondered how the summer solstice got its name in the first place? That’s all thanks to two Latin words. One, ‘son,’ means sun, while the other, ‘sistere,’ means to stand still. The two were pushed together as people believed the sun stood still on the day instead of following the rise and fall that comes with the rest of the days in the year.

The temperature takes a while to catch up to the sun

Just because the summer solstice is the longest day of the year doesn’t mean it tends to be the hottest. Instead, that moment tends to come a month or two later, but how? It’s all to do with the amount of water across the surface of the Earth. It has a high specific heat, meaning it takes the water a long time to heat up and cool down. In turn, it usually takes around six weeks of constant heat for the Earth’s temperature to catch up to the amount of sun each day.

The largest bonfire was once held for the summer solstice

Every culture has its own way of celebrating the summer solstice, with Midsummer taking place across Scandinavia and some neighboring European countries. The day is celebrated on June 24, but it was 2016 in Norway that broke records. That’s because, for a time, they had the record for the tallest bonfire, with the tower standing a whopping 155.5 feet tall. Sadly, that record was broken three years later by the Austrian Carnival celebration, but it’s still an impressive number nonetheless.

The new year was celebrated at the summer solstice in Ancient Egypt

Having a calendar is nothing new, but when we celebrate each day is. In Ancient Egypt, they knew all about the sun and where it was in the sky, with the summer solstice marking the moment before the appearance of the Sirius star. The Ancient Egyptians believed this was the thing responsible for flooding the Nile each year, a moment they needed each year for their farming. As a result, their calendars marked the appearance of Sirius after the summer solstice as the start of the new year.

Midnight baseball is how Alaskans celebrate the day

If you want a different way to celebrate the summer solstice, you might want to head to Alaska. Why? That’s because it’s home to the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks, aka the most northern baseball team on Earth. Every year, they play a baseball game that begins at 10 pm and stretches into the following morning, all without the need to use artificial lighting. Although the tradition first started in 1906, the Goldpanners took over the role in 1960 when the team was formed and has taken place every year since.

The day was once a dark moment in history

Galileo Galilei is one of the most famous astronomers of all time and did incredible things for science. Still, not everyone believed what he had to say at the time - and many thought Galileo had lost his mind. It’s said that the summer solstice in 1633 actually marked a dark day in science, as the astronomer was allegedly forced to recant his statement that the planet revolves around the sun on the day. Even though he took back his findings, Galileo was still forced to spend the rest of his days under house arrest.

The things you might not know about the summer solstice go to show just how much history and celebration goes into the day. For generations, people around the world have celebrated the longest day of the year, with many keen to see what each year has in store.