Summer solstice 2020 in Southern Hemisphere will be at 9:02pm on
Monday 21 December AEDT.
The ancient Celts celebrated the summer and winter solstice as the time when the day length started to change.
The Summer Solstice occurs once a year in December when the Sun’s track across the Australian sky reaches its highest point.
It is the day that has the most daylight hours of any in the year. The summer solstice usually occurs on 22 December, but can occur between 21 and 23 December.
Remember that the Earth has seasons because its axis is tilted. The Earth rotates on its axis as it orbits the Sun, but the axis always points in the same direction.
After the September equinox, the tilt of Earth’s axis increasingly angles our south pole towards the Sun, so the Sun appears further south in the sky each day until it’s over the Tropic of Capricorn around 21 December. This is the southern hemisphere’s summer solstice.
