JUNE 18, 2009 ISSUE
When The Sun Enters The Sign Of The Moon
The summer solstice is the time most people associate with the longest day of the year. They generally don’t link it with when the sun enters Cancer, and hardly ever with the time the sun appears to stand still in the sky—though the word solstice actually means “sun standing still.”
If they think of these ideas at all, most people mix the three together, which isn’t surprising as official calendars do the same thing: yet they are different ideas that are linked, but not necessarily the same.
The sun’s standstill, which happens twice a year, is when the sun appears to rise and set at the same location in the eastern and western skies for three days in a row. In the case of the summer solstice, it is when the sun’s apparent position reaches its highest point, at about 23.5 degrees north.
Astronomers calculate this nowadays, but ancient cultures knew when it happened by watching for it. Years of observations told them where to look for the standstill, and many cultures marked the event with specially aligned structures—such as Ohio’s Serpent Mound, whose head aligns with the summer solstice sunset.
The solstice in Boone, measured by sunrises and sunsets from NASA data, starts today—Thursday, June 18—and ends Saturday, June 21.
These calculated dates will be close to the visible phenomenon, but to verify it may be hard. The visibility of a solstice at the moment of the sun’s rise or set depends on where the viewer is standing and requires a clear horizon. Such locations are pretty rare. The places where watchers can see it are often considered sacred sites, because not only is the solstice a visible phenomenon, but because it also represents the especially powerful energy of a planet apparently changing direction.
There are longer days in Boone than the days of the solstice. The High Country has been having its earliest sunrises, at 5:09 a.m., since June 6. It will have its latest sunset on July 4, at 7:48 p.m.
The longest days, calculated from the NASA data, are from June 18 to June 24, when the earliest sunrises combine with the latest sunsets to allow 14 hours 38 minutes of daylight. The other days between June 6 and July 4 are shorter in length by seconds.
Another important moment around the time of the solstice is the sun’s entry into Cancer, the sign of the moon. In tables of planets’ movements in the skies, this Saturday, June 20, at 10:46 p.m. is the time marked officially for the sun’s entry into Cancer.
This exact time may or may not be correct: it depends on whether you are thinking of the constellations or the signs of the zodiac. The former vary greatly in size, but for the latter, the circle is divided into twelve signs of 30 degrees each. While the official time given for the entry of the sun into Cancer will be correct according to the zodiac signs, it may or may not correspond to the time the sun actually enters the constellation.
Observation to check this out is impossible—because when the sun enters a sign or a constellation, its light blanks out the light of the stars.
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