The Summer Solstice Revistied

 

Chicagohenge 9-20-19

On June 20, 2012, I first wrote about The Summer Solstice.  Today, I thought about writing about it not remembering I had already done it.  I was thinking about it today because I wrote about The Winter Solstice six short months ago.  Since that day in December, the days have slowly gotten longer until today, the longest day of the year and the first day of summer.  Now that we have peaked out, the days will get shorter at the same steady rate they got longer until, naturally, the Winter Solstice on December 21, the first day of winter. 

Clearly, these cosmic cycles and symmetries fascinate me and I am not sure why.  Maybe, had I lived centuries earlier, I might have been a shaman of the cosmos.  That sounds so much more appealing than being a mere peasant or serf.  No matter our technological advances, this phenomenon has been constant throughout the ages.  For us in the Northern Hemisphere, these solstices occur in the summer the North pole is pointing directly at the sun and when the South Pole is doing the same in the winter.

While I was working in New York, a summer solstice related event, Manhattanhenge, became popular.  I am guessing this happened in the late 1990s.  This is the day when the rising and setting perfectly aligns with the East-West streets of the famous Borough.  It is something to see.  I first noticed it when I was leaving work one day.  There were several photographers with tripods and expensive cameras set up at each street as I walked to Grand Central Station.  After a few blocks, I asked a friendly looking feloow what it was all about.  He said, “Manhattanhenge.”  With no further explanation, I understood what he meant.  I missed my train watching the beautiful sunset. 

I thought Manhattanhenge occurred on the solstice itself but no.  The streets in Manhattan are not perfectly East and West.  They are off by 29 degrees.  So, Manhattanhenge happens twice:  about twenty days before and after the solstice.  This year it happened on May 29^th and 30^th and will occur again on July 12^th and 13^th.  The internet credits a renown astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, with “discovering” Manhattanhenge.  I kinda think he coined the term, though by doing

Chicagohenge 9-20-19

so and providing a schedule for when the phenomenon would occur, he popularized the event.

I never took any photos of Manhattanhenge.  But there are plenty of photos you can find by simply doing an internet search for them.  The tall building and narrow streets of Manhattan make some of the photos quite beautiful.

There is a Chicagohenge as well.  These happen a week before the vernal and fall equinoxes.  I happened to be downtown on a beautiful September day in 2019.  We were going to dinner with friends.  I had dropped everyone off at the restaurant, parked the car, and noticed the phenomenon by total accident.  I took the photos included here.

Here is a video of Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining it better than I ever could.