New Delhi: Delhi will host a solar fest Tuesday to celebrate the longest day of the year - which marks the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere.
To mark the day, SPACE, an NGO, will celebrate a solar fest with a skit being performed at the 18th century observatory Jantar Mantar in the capital.
"To celebrate the summer solstice, SPACE will be organising a public outreach at Jantar Mantar on Tuesday, June 21. There will also be a solar fest in which a skit will be performed," a statement said.
Explaining what the summer solstice means, the statement said: "At the June solstice, the earth is positioned in its orbit so that the north pole is leaning 23-and-a-half degrees toward the sun."
As seen from the earth, the sun is directly overhead at noon 23-and-a-half degrees north of the equator, at an imaginary line encircling the globe, known as the Tropic of Cancer. The sun`s rays are directly overhead along the Tropic of Cancer (the latitude line at 23.5° north, passing through Mexico, Saharan Africa, and India), it said.
"This is as far north as the sun ever gets. This results in the longest day of the year. For example in New Delhi, sunrise on summer solstice day in 2011 will be at 5:24 a.m. and sunset will be at 7:22 p.m., making it a day which is almost of 14 hours` duration," the statement said.
While this marks the height of summer in the northern hemisphere, it simultaneously marks the winter in the southern hemisphere.
