What is the Solstice?

Question

In the book "Love, Stargirl," Stargirl goes to a grassy hill every Thursday morning to plant a spatula tied to a stake. She keeps talking about mapping out the sunlight and how many days there are until Solstice. Why is she doing this? What is Solstice and how does it work? How can I do this myself?

Answer 1

The summer solstice is the day when the sun is highest in the sky at noon and the winter solstice is the day when the sun is lowest in the sky at noon.

If you plant a stick in the ground and measure the length of the shadow every day at noon, you can tell approximately when these days are occurring because the noon shadow will be shortest in summer and longest in winter.

Answer 2

the solstices are when the sun is at its highest or lowest altitude for any particular latitude.  It has nothing to do with closest or farthest from the sun.  since an object on the surface of the earth rotates with the earth, by marking how long the shadow of a stick is at noon (local), the day with the shortest shadow would be the summer solstice(shortest shadow is winter solstice).  For a more technical definition, it is the time when the earths axial tilt points directly towards or away from the sun.  

Answer 3

Depends on the season. It's either the shortest or longest day of the year. The Solstice has been celebrated since the beginning of man.  

Answer 4

Solstices are short periods during the course of the calendar year when the equator of the earth is at the greatest distance from the sun. The phenomenon of the solstice is created when the axis of the planet is tiled directly towards or away from the sun, causing the exposure of the equator of the planet to be further away from the rays of the sun. The time of solstice also has a direct impact on the amount of daylight that is experienced in different parts of the world just before, during, and after the occurrence.

The name for this period when the equator is furthest from the sun has its roots in two Latin words or terms. Sol is Latin for the sun, while sistere is understood to translate as standing still. Thus, a solstice is a time when it appears that the sun is standing still rather than moving around the earth. The actual word solstice dates back to a time in human history when the earth was understood to be the centre of the universe.

Solstice rituals calendar- www.cassandraeason.co.uk/rites_rituals.h...  

Answer 5

In terms of observing the sun from the surface of the Earth (in the northern hemisphere), the Solstices (there are two) are the days when the sun reaches its northernmost (Summer Solstice) and southernmost (Winter Solstice) points in the sky. This apparent north-south motion throughout the year is caused by the northern axis of the Earth tilting towards (in Summer) and away (in Winter) from the sun.

There is plenty of hard science behind it, but that's the gist in the context of the story.

What Stargirl is doing is plotting an "analemma" on the ground. It's pretty simple to do - just plant a stick in the ground and every day or two go outside at exactly the same time of day and make a chalk mark at the tip of the stick's shadow on the ground. You will see that the marks made throughout the year make a figure-8, with one "end" of the figure occurring at the Winter Solstice (in December) and the other occurring at the Summer Solstice (in June). The "X" in the middle of the figure-8 is at the point of the Spring and Fall Equinoxes, when the sun is crossing over the Equator.

Answer 6

I don't know about the book "Love, Stargirl" but the Winter and Summer solstice is the point when Earth is the closest or farthest away from the sun.

The equinox is the point in fall or spring when the earth is halfway between the two solstices

Answer 7

The summer solstice and the winter solstice!

The summer solstice(22nd June) is the day in a year when daytime is the longest and the winter solstice(22nd December) is the day in a year when daytime is the shortest!