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Summer Solstice 2025: Date, Time And How It Works
The sun rises at Stonehenge, near Amesbury, in Wiltshire, southern England on June 21, 2023, during ... More the Summer Solstice festival, which dates back thousands of years, celebrating the longest day of the year. (Photo by DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty Images)
The June solstice marks the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the shortest in the Southern Hemisphere. But what exactly causes this astronomical event? Here's everything you need to know about the summer solstice and the winter solstice in June 2025, including the dates and where to livestream it from Stonehenge in the U.K.
Called the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere because it heralds the beginning of the new astronomical season of summer, the event takes place this year at precisely 02:42 UTC on Saturday, June 21, 2025 (10:42 p.m. EDT on Friday, June 20).
The solstice is one of four major waymarkers of Earth's journey around the sun, the others being the other solstice in December and the two equinoxes in September and March. All are a consequence of the 23.5-degree tilt of Earth's axis with respect to the plane of the solar system. That tilt causes different parts of the planet to get more or less hours of daylight according to the time of year. It's the tilt that causes Earth's seasons.
During the summer solstice, the Northern Hemisphere tilts toward the sun, allowing it to appear at its highest point in the sky at noon. The opposite is the case in the Southern Hemisphere.
On the date of the June solstice, the sun shines directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer, an imaginary line around Earth at 23.5 degrees north of the equator (through Mexico, India and Egypt). At the North Pole, the sun doesn't set, while at the South Pole, it doesn't rise.
Though the solstice itself isn't easily perceptible, it is often associated with visible changes in the sun's path. The exact point on the horizon that the sun appears to rise and set changes throughout the year. On the June solstice, the sun rises at its most extreme point on the northeast horizon, reaches its highest point in the sky at noon, and sets at its most extreme point on the northwest horizon. It's for that reason that the solstice is celebrated at Stonehenge in the U.K., a monument that is thought to align with the rising sun on the date of the June solstice. English Heritage offers a YouTube livestream of the sunrise on the solstice.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
