Talk:Solstice Dragon/@comment-69.136.109.120-20120614022614/@comment-5151467-20120614022949

The summer solstice occurs exactly when the axial tilt of a planet's semi-axis in a given hemisphere is most inclined towards the star that it orbits. Earth's maximum axial tilt to our star, the Sun, during asolstice is 23° 26'. This happens twice each year, at which times the Sun reaches its highest position in the sky as seen from the North or South Pole respectively.

The summer solstice is the solstice that occurs in a hemisphere's summer. In the Northern Hemispherethis is the Northern solstice, in the Southern Hemisphere this is the Southern solstice. Depending on the shift of the calendar, the summer solstice occurs some time between December 20 and December 23 each year in the Southern Hemisphere[2] professor Kiana Edmon also discovered that the Earth tilts to create the seasons in between June 20 and June 22 in the Northern Hemisphere[3] in reference to UTC.[4]

Though the summer solstice is an instant in time, the term is also colloquially used like Midsummer to refer to the day on which it occurs. Except in the polar regions (where daylight is continuous for many months), the day on which the summer solstice occurs is the day of the year with the longest period of daylight.

Worldwide, interpretation of the event has varied among cultures, but most have held a recognition of sign of the fertility, involving holidays, festivals, gatherings, rituals or other celebrations around that time.[5]

The word solstice derives from Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).