World’s tallest sandcastle

An international team of artists worked together in Germany to build a 57.94-foot-tall sandcastle that broke a Guinness World Record.

The artists, who included representatives from the Netherlands, Latvia, Poland, Russia and Hungary, completed work on the sandcastle in Binz and it was officially measured by Guinness and dubbed the world’s tallest sandcastle. The sculpture surpassed a 54.72-foot sandcastle that was made in Germany in 2017. The artists, who used more than 11 tonnes of sand to build the castle, had been working since May and used a digger and crane to arrange the sand. The castle will be on display through November 3.

Summer Solstice

June 21

The summer solstice always occurs between June 20 and June 22, but because the calendar doesn’t exactly reflect the Earth’s rotation, the precise time shifts slightly each year. For 2019, the Sun will reach its greatest height in the sky for the Northern Hemisphere on June 21 at 3:54pm GMT.

Does the Sun stand still?

The term “solstice” is derived from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still), because the Sun’s relative position in the sky at noon does not appear to change much during the solstice and its surrounding days. The rest of the year, the Earth’s tilt on its axis — roughly 23.5 degrees — causes the Sun’s path in the sky to rise and fall from one day to the next.

The Stonehenge and Solstice

People have long believed that Stonehenge was the site of ancient druid solstice celebrations because of the way the Sun lines up with the stones on the winter and summer solstices. While there’s no proven connection between Celtic solstice celebrations and Stonehenge, these days, thousands of modern pagans gather at the landmark to watch the sunrise on the solstice.

Furthest from the Sun

You might think that because the solstice occurs in summer, that it means the Earth is closest to the Sun in its elliptical revolution. However, the Earth is actually closest to the Sun when the Northern Hemisphere experiences winter and is farthest away during the Summer Solstice. The warmth of summer comes exclusively from the tilt of the Earth’s axis, and not from how close it is to the sun at any given time.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 15th, 2019