The 2012 Summer Solstice
It's the first official day of summer and the longest day of the year.
Today is the first day of summer, also known as the summer solstice. It's the longest day of the year (and the shortest night). The actual moment of the solstice will occur at about 7:09 p.m. this evening, while the sun sits directly above the Pacific Ocean to the west of Hawaii. As you may remember from your grade school science lessons, the seasons and the changing lengths of the day and night throughout the year are a result of the Earth's axial tilt. Try to visualize the Earth's orbit around the sun as an elliptical path on an imaginary plane in space. As the Earth rests in that plane, its north and south poles—the ends of its axis—do not point straight "up" and "down." The axis is instead about 23.4 degrees off the "vertical." As a …
