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Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland

What is a solstice? An astronomer explains the long and short of days, years and seasons

Sun Earth
A long-exposure photo reveals the Sun's path in the sky every day for a six-month period. Bob Fosbury / Flickr, CC BY-SA

Happy solstice everyone! The mid-year solstice in 2023 falls at 2:58 pm UTC on 21 June (or, in more advanced time zones like the one I’m writing from, in the early hours of 22 June).

Depending on where you are reading this, this will either be your winter solstice (for those in the southern hemisphere) or the summer solstice (for our northern readers).

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