It's Solsticey Goodness!
Reshared post from +Philip Plait
#BAFact : The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, but does NOT have the earliest sunrise/latest sunset!
Today is the summer solstice (as I wrote about here http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/06/20/shall-i-compare-thee-to-a-summers-solstice/ ) which means it's the longest day of the year. However, oddly, that does not mean it has the earliest sunrise and latest sunset! I know, that's counterintuitive, but it's because the Earth orbits the Sun on an ellipse. That messes up the speed of the Sun's motion on the sky, which in turn messes up thee timing of the sunrise and sunset.
The link below from Australia's ABC network explains how all this works.
Embedded Link
Why doesn't the latest sunset fall on the longest day of the year?
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I confess I’ve always wondered about this. Thanks for giving me the answer.