Astronomical events listed to welcome the first day of summer

Summer officially returns to Utah the morning of Wednesday the 21st at 6:26 a.m. MDT.

According to NASA Solar System Ambassador Patrick Wiggins, “This event, which astronomers call the June solstice, marks the day when the Sun rises and sets as far north as it’s going to this year.”

Beginning the next day, the Sun will start rising and setting farther and farther south until December when it will be at its most southern point, marking the start of northern hemispheric winter.

There are two times a year when the Sun is between its solstice extremes. One is at the start of spring and the other is at the start of fall.

The first day of summer is also the day with the most sunshine of the year, bringing Utah some 15 hours of sunlight as compared to the year’s shortest day in December when the Sun is in the sky for barely 9 hours.

While those in the northern hemisphere mark the June solstice as the start of summer, those in the southern hemisphere, where the seasons are reversed, see it as the onset of winter.

Northwestern Utah is home to a solstice monument called the Sun Tunnels. Built in the 1970s near Lucin, Utah, Sun Tunnels is the creation of artist Nancy Holt. The tunnels are actually 4 large concrete pipes arranged so that the light of the rising solstice Sun passes through two of the pipes. Later that day the setting Sun shines through the other two pipes.

For additional astronomical information and to see pictures and directions to Sun Tunnels, visit http://utahastro.info/SUNTUNNELS.HTML .