Summer solstice 2020: Sensual traditions on the longest day of the year

summer solstice 2019

Call it love. Call it romance. Call it sensuality. plow ahead and call it old-fashioned lust if you would like .
But whatever you call it, the June 21 for 2020 is arriving -- and it's a history of stirring hearts and libidos.
The longest day of the year within the hemisphere kicks off the official start of summer and with it, the bounty of the harvest.
So it should come as no surprise that the solstice is linked to fertility -- both of the plant and human variety -- in destinations round the world.
CNN Travel explores a number of those long-standing summer traditions. But first, we'll take a glance at the science of a solstice and what's special in 2020.

Summer solstice: Q&A

Question: i prefer precision. Exactly when is that the June 21 in 2020?
It will happen at 21:43 UTC (Universal Coordinated Time) on Saturday, June 20. If you're within the Eastern Time Zone of the us , that's 5:43 p.m. June 20.
But if you happen to measure in Tokyo, as an example , your precise June 21 moment actually happens at 6:43 a.m. on Sunday, June 21.
In fact, all of Asia will observe the solstice on summer solstice . Berlin, Germany, in Central Europe barely falls on the June 20 date at 11:43 p.m. civil time .
The website TimeandDate features a handy tool to allow you to calculate the time for where you will be .
Question: it is the longest day of the year -- and it happens everywhere the world?
Nope. it is the longest day only within the hemisphere . it is the shortest day of the year south of the equator. they're close to welcome three months of winter there.

And the differences in what proportion daylight you get become very dramatic as you meet up with to the poles and farther from the equator. as an example , residents of northerly St. Petersburg, Russia, will get a 3:35 a.m. sunrise and almost 19 hours of sunshine . Even the night doesn't get that dark.
In Singapore, a hemisphere city-state but one just barely above the equator, people barely notice the difference. They get a measly extra 11 minutes of daylight.
As for those poor penguins in Antarctica guarding their eggs -- if they might talk, they might tell you tons about living in 24-hour darkness.

Question: Why don't we just get 12 hours of daylight all year?

Folks everywhere the earth actually did get equal doses of day and night back during the vernal equinox on March 20. But the quantity of sunlight we get within the hemisphere has been increasing daily ever since. Why?
That's because the world is aligned on an axis, an imaginary pole browsing the middle of our planet. But this axis tilts -- at an angle of 23.5 degrees.
"As Earth orbits the sun [once each year], its tilted axis always points within the same direction. So, throughout the year, different parts of Earth get the sun's direct rays," consistent with NASA.
When the sun reaches its apex within the hemisphere , that is the June 21 .
At that point , "the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer, which is found at 23.5° latitude North, and runs through Mexico, the Bahamas, Egypt, Saudi Arabia , India and southern China," consistent with the National Weather Service.

summer solstice traditions

Bonus for 2020: solar eclipse
It's getting to be a very big celestial weekend for a few people within the orient . additionally to the solstice, they're going to get to witness an solar eclipse . (Using proper eye protection, of course).
On Sunday, the new phase of the moon will pass between the world and therefore the sun, blocking it out minus a fiery ring on the sides . An solar eclipse differs from a complete eclipse, during which the whole sun is blocked. a replacement moon is just too distant from Earth to completely obscure the sun's disc in an solar eclipse .
People within the occident will just need to accept an honest solstice because it are going to be nighttime in their a part of the planet when the solar eclipse occurs.