Any ideas why ?

Much love,

Lije

Bad astronomer! BAD astronomer!

No, but seriously: great blog. Keep up the good work.

If you’re a solar system traveller, there’s a page showing the analemma’s of the other planets, too.

I’ve always thought that the calender year should either start or end with either the winter or summer solstice.

And physically, defining the start of winter on that day makes sense. Although the amount of daylight will increase, the radiation from the Earth is still so great (even with global warming) that the extra insolation won’t start balancing it until February-March. So the days will keep getting colder.

The same thing works during a typical day. The thermal inertia of the atmosphere is such that the warmest time of the day is about 2 pm: AFTER midday.

It’s so different on Mars . . . midday IS the warmest time of the day because the atmosphere has such a low thermal inertia.

Cheers!

— Steve >>>>

However, if we need a precise time frame for winter, I wouldn’t classify the solstice as the midpoint, either. I associate winter more with cold temperatures than with lack of daylight. Therefore, for most areas north of the Tropic of Cancer, winter should be defined as December, January and February, in my opinion. It’s certainly more arbitrary than using the solstice as a reference point, but it’s much more convenient.

Same goes for if Astrology was outlawed everywhere

I think a lot of the problem is having a season called Fall instead of Autumn. If you look at Autumn as the season of harvest then August/September/October makes perfect sense. If you spend all your day inside with electric lights and think that Fall is just about when the leaves fall off the trees then of course you’ll get all mixed up.

Happy Solstice all.

You’d probably have very distinct seasons but they’d be half as long as before. The warmest periods would be just after the equinoxes. I’d call those periods “summer”. The coldest would be just after the solstices. I’d call those “winter”.