21 December 2020
Today is one of two days per year when the sun stands still.
By the time you read this article the December solstice has already happened. The sun paused over the Tropic of Capricorn at 10:02 UTC, the same moment everywhere on Earth. In Pittsburgh it occurred at 5:02am local time, more than two and a half hours before sunrise.
If you wanted to experience sunrise and the December solstice simultaneously the best place would have been Georgetown, Guyana where the sun rose at 5:59am and the solstice occurred 3 minutes later at 6:02am local time (GYT). It’s too late to do that this year but 2021 is a possibility. By then we hope to travel safely thanks to the COVID-19 vaccine.
The good news for now is that the days are already getting longer in Pittsburgh. Tomorrow will be 3 seconds longer than today.
(photo by Fir0002/Flagstaffotos via Wikimedia Commons; click on the caption to see the original)
p.s. I am old enough that… I cannot think of Guyana without remembering the Jonestown, Guyana massacre orchestrated by cult leader Jim Jones on 18 November 1978. 918 people died in the mass murder-suicide. It is the origin of the phrase “Drinking the Kool-Aid.”
A very sad remembrance, Kate. I too remember that awful day. I did NOT know that is where the Kool-Aid reference came from though.
On a better note, I am happy the days will now be longer!! Happy Solstice!
Kate, I am a long-time quiet lover of your blog, but wanted to comment on your postscript. The phrase “Kool-aid acid test” actually predates the sad massacre in Guyana by a decade. It originates from Tom Wolfe’s 1968 novel “The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test,” where he relates the antics of Ken Kesey’s hippie-psychedelic gang who among other things would mix their LSD with Kool-aid.
Kathy, I agree the phrase “Kool-Aid acid test” is from an earlier time and a completely different source. But I was writing about the phrase “Drinking the Kool-aid” which originated with the Jim Jones massacre as described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid and here: https://www.businessinsider.com/drinking-the-kool-aid-meaning-jonestown-massacre-2018-11