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My latest cartoon for New Scientist
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Lucas de Heere (1534–1584)
English: One of the earliest near-accurate depictions of Stonehenge.
Date between 1573 and 1575
watercolor
British Library
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In honor of the summer solstice, this is what Stonehenge looked like in 1500's
Source: https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_28330
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England and the Northern Lights
It’s rare to be able to see the aurora borealis in the UK. Northern Scotland gets sightings most winter months, but it doesn’t often get seen further south.
As the photo above shows, we have been having a BRILLIANT couple of nights in southern England, where the skies get lit up. Stonehenge is in Wiltshire- which might get a sight like this once in a generation. People in London have taken photos- if they can get away from the city’s lights. Even Cornwall has been able to enjoy the sight.
Why? According to the Met Office (The UK’s national weather service) “A coronal hole high speed stream arrived this evening combined with a rather fast coronal mass ejection leading to #Aurora sightings across the UK.”
According to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the aurora is made up of atoms and molecules in our atmosphere colliding with particles from the sun. The lines of force in the Earth’s magnetic field cause the wavy patterns of light. The colours are created by different gases; the green is caused by oxygen, and the purple, blue and pink are caused by nitrogen. The lowest part of an aurora is usually around 80 miles from Earth’s surface, but the top could be many hundreds of miles above our planet.
People in the south are excited by this! We don’t often get the chance - rarely seen this far south, and all-too-often cloud cover dims the chances even more.
I’ve been in southern England for (GAK) 47 years and this is the first time I’ve seen them. If you are on Twitter, check out @aurorawatchuk, where the space physicists at Lancaster University will tweet when the aurora may be visible from the UK.
The photo above makes me wonder what the Neolithic and bronze age people who built Stonehenge and the other monuments on the Salisbury Plain would have made of such a sight.
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21-22.12.2022
Happy Solstice! Watch it live here!
Both the sunset on Wednesday the 21st and the sunrise on Thursday the 22nd are part of the “winter solstice”. The shortest day and the longest night are the period of the solstice, between sunset and sunrise, when the earth is reborn.
Stonehenge was built between 3000 and 2000 BC, and it is aligned to capture the setting sun on the winter solstice, more precisely than the dawn the following morning- which is why the photo above has the sun rising just marginally to the right of centre- where it set the night before. Archaeologists think that the sunset of winter solstice was more important to the people who built it than the dawn.
It is more common these days to think of the summer solstice as THE Stonehenge event, but that is wrong. Both the sunset and sunrise at the winter solstice were more important to the builders than the summer solstice.
Proof of that can be found in the other monuments that are in the same area as Stonehenge. Built a full 500 years before any of the standing stones of Stonehenge, the Cursus was built by neolithic people as a bank and ditch earthwork just 800 metres north of Stonehenge. The Cursus measures three kilometres long, enclosing an area that it about 100 meters wide.
The cursus has a mound and the remnants of a pit for a large standing stone at either end, which were designed to trace the path of the summer solstice, tracking the sun from dawn until it set - on the longest day of the year. The best viewpoint on the plain to see this effect is indicated below at the bottom of the triangle. What is interesting is that exact spot is where you will find today the Heel Stone.
Are we surprised that this is EXACTLY in line where the stones of Stonehenge were put in place 500 years later? It’s purpose, however was to look in the opposite direction, to see the point where the sun set at the winter solstice.
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Winter Solstice has begun!
This photo by English Heritage captures tonight’s sunset. Clouds interfere a bit but the alignment is clear. This is the end of the shortest day of the year. Tonight the track of the sun stops moving southwards across the line of the stones and starts its return journey. Tomorrow’s sunrise marks the start of the new solar year when every day is just that little bit longer.
The live stream of sunrise is tomorrow with dawn predicted to be at 08:09 Greenwich Mean Time.
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Happy solstice to all! A clear sunrise at Stonehenge this morning. Unheard of! Maybe it’s a a good omen.
Photo taken this morning by @STONEHENGE .
i totally forgot to watch the live stream, must see if it's archived.
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Summer Solstice Stonehenge
The sunrise immediately before summer solstice – when the days gradually start to get shorter – is the moment traditionally marked at Stonehenge, and their live coverage replicates this. This year, summer solstice is at 10:13 BST on Tuesday 21st June.
The live stream will begin at 20:45 BST on Monday 20th June. Sunset is at 21:28 BST. It will be live for approximately 45 minutes before and after. They’ll be streaming the sunrise too. Check their facebook events for the sunrise stream, which will begin at 04:00 BST on Tuesday 21 June.
Once it goes live, Watch it here.
ooooh, yes!
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Totally off topic but omg that Finnish full-sized snow Stonehenge! Engage that emoji with the star eyes. Part of it is I love the idea of all these people taking great pains to make it precisely like the real one, laboring with exquisite workmanship to create a masterpiece that will inevitably melt as spring comes in. Magical. ✨
Edit: I found a YouTube link. https://youtu.be/wCHVlHrh35A
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British Christmas day 22 HAPPY SOLSTICE!
Officially, solstice happened overnight, but this photo above is the sunrise at Stonehenge this morning, in case you missed the live stream. Cloud diffused the moment when the sun was visible through the stones. BUT, remember that it would not be a perfect alignment because the stones were placed to capture winter solstice SUNSET, not sunrise.
On a clear day, this is what our neolithic ancestors would have witnessed last night.
Now because of the missing stones on the far side, the aperture is wider.
If you are interested in Stonehenge as an astronomical clock, take a look at this map. Who said astronomy is a modern human development?
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More Stonehenge Solstice Secrets
I was curious this morning about why the camera angle set up by English heritage to capture the sunrise was so different from yesterday’s photos of the sunset. Obviously, the difference is between east for sunrise and west for sunset, but… there is more to it than that.
Although the key alignment for Stonehenge is the winter solstice SUNSET, in the last 20 years, entirely as a result of the work by Professor. Gordon Freeman of the University of Alberta, a secondary alignment has been suggested that runs between the Winter Solstice SUNRISE.
This alignment makes use of a sightline that goes through a “notch” in the edge of one of the stones of the western Trilithon, skims the edge of one of the stones of the south eastern Trilithon and passes between the stones on either side of the Sarsen Circle.
The “notch” has puzzled scientists for years, because it is clearly a cut rather than some accident. The Canadian team investigated further. Here’s the view from the visitor path closest to the Sarsen Circle, looking southeast along this secondary alignment.
The close-up view below shows the horizon over Coneybury Hill and this is exactly where Winter Solstice Sunrise occurred 4,500 years ago:
Why had it taken so long to unlock the secret? Because the Earth’s axis has changed its tilt slightly the Winter Solstice Sunrise now occurs two sun-widths to the left of where it did when Stonehenge was built. This means that the original precise alignment is now a little off.
Even so, you only have to wait a few minutes after sunrise for the Sun to shine straight along this line.
And the view from slightly further back is breathtakingly beautiful.
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British Christmas Day 21/22 Winter Solstice
When you have the world’s best/oldest astronomical clock, you tend to make a big deal of it. I live less than 20 miles from Stonehenge so perhaps that makes me more aware of it than most.
This year, based on advice from the druid and pagan communities, the Solstice will be marked at Stonehenge on the morning of Wednesday 22 December - the first sunrise following the astronomical solstice which occurs after sunset the previous day. This is also when the days begin to get longer again. Both the sunset on Tuesday and the sunrise on Wednesday are part of the “winter solstice”.
In normal years, there are gatherings of pagans, druids, and the simply curious onlookers who want to mark the shortest day and longest night of the winter. In non-Covid times, the rules that keep tourists out of the middle of the standing stone circle are often relaxed.
Stonehenge was built between 3000 and 2000 BC, and it is aligned to capture the setting sun on the winter solstice, more precisely than the dawn the following morning. Archaeologists think that the sunset of winter solstice was more important to the people who built it than the dawn. Both the sunset and sunrise at the winter solstice were more important to the builders than the summer solstice.
Because of COVID restrictions, English Heritage is asking only those people who have had a negative lateral flow test result to attend on Wednesday morning. The sun will rise around 8:11am on Wednesday 22 December and the monument field will be open as soon as it is light enough for people to go in safely - usually around 7.45am.
English Heritage is live streaming the solstice. It all starts at sunset at 16:01 GMT TONIGHT on Tuesday 21st December. English Heritage will be live for about 45 minutes before and after both the sunset and the sunrise.
You can watch it live here.
After the events English Heritage will have a video of both.
This post is a gift to @anyawen, who celebrates the Solstice!
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Stonehenge, Wiltshire.
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Happy Solstice 2020!
I live sixteen miles from Stonehenge, and can report that today the sun was not visible because of cloud cover. And for the first time in years, people were banned from being there to see it happen. You can watch the live recording of dawn here
The photo above is mine, taken in 2018, during the late autumn when there were no visitors around except for me and a friend. Oh, and the rook on the top of the stone. He was nice.
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Comet NEOWISE over Stonehenge
Image Credit & Copyright: Declan Deval
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