When is the summer solstice 2021? Date, time and how to watch Stonehenge live
SUMMER solstice celebrations will take place this month commemorating the longest day of the year.
But when is the summer solstice this year and when does summer end? Here is everything you need to know…
When is the summer solstice 2021?
The summer solstice will begin Monday, June 21 at 04.31am UK time.
But this doesn’t mean that it falls on June 21 every year.
The summer solstice can occur between June 20 and June 22 each year depending on when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer at midday.
It is the day with the shortest period of daylight and the longest night of the year.
This is because the tilt of the Earth’s axis is most aligned with the sun, providing us with the most daylight of the year.
After June 21, the nights will begin to close in as our planet rotates with the northern hemisphere tilting further from the sun.
How can I watch Stonehenge live?
Stonehenge’s Midsummer’s Eve festival is one of the world’s biggest Solstice events.
It occurs beside the ancient Neolithic site of Stonehenge in Wiltshire.
The stones are set within a group of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments, as well as several hundred burial mounds.
On the solstice, people gather at Stonehenge in the early morning to watch the sun rise over the stones.
You can watch the alignments in action on the Facebook page of English Heritage or on Skyscape.
Unfortunately due to Boris Johnson pushing Freedom Day to July, no events will be scheduled to happen at Stonehenge this year.
When will summer 2021 end?
This year the summer will last 93 days, 15 hours and 49 minutes.
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It will end on the equinox on September 22.
There are a couple of ways of calculating when the season starts, depending on whether you mean the astronomical summer and the meteorological summer.
The meteorological summer is defined as June, July and August, so always begins on Thursday, June 1 and ends on August 31.