For those who are always fretting about not having enough time in the day, today is your day. While the summer solstice technically happens on Wednesday at 12:24 a.m. ET, it's Tuesday that's getting that blissful extra bit of sunlight.
On the summer solstice — the longest day of the year and the first official day of summer — the sun sits directly overtop the Tropic of Cancer, which rests at 23.5 degrees north latitude. The positioning of the Earth relative to the sun allows the Earth's northern hemisphere to bask in more direct sunlight on the summer solstice than on any other day of the year. The southern hemisphere celebrates the winter solstice — the shortest day of the year — on the day the northern hemisphere celebrates the summer solstice.
The precise number of extra daylight hours you'll get depends on your latitude: Places farther north get more hours of sunlight than more southern locales. So while most parts of Texas will get about 14 or 14.5 hours of sunlight Tuesday for the summer solstice, Boston will get 15 to 15.5 hours of daylight.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
So much more daylight for summertime activities!
-
Grok in the crosshairs as EU launches deepfake porn probeIN THE SPOTLIGHT The European Union has officially begun investigating Elon Musk’s proprietary AI, as regulators zero in on Grok’s porn problem and its impact continent-wide
-
‘But being a “hot” country does not make you a good country’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Why have homicide rates reportedly plummeted in the last year?Today’s Big Question There could be more to the issue than politics
-
Israel retrieves final hostage’s body from GazaSpeed Read The 24-year-old police officer was killed during the initial Hamas attack
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
-
Maduro pleads not guilty in first US court hearingSpeed Read Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores pleaded not guilty to cocaine trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracy
-
Iran’s government rocked by protestsSpeed Read The death toll from protests sparked by the collapse of Iran’s currency has reached at least 19
