Today, at 23:59 UTC, summer will officially begin. UTC is "Coordinated Universal Time," and is almost the same as GMT, "Greenwich Mean Time," the mean solar time at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London. This means that summer in 2008 will begin today near 19:59 EDT and 16:59 PDT. Here's hoping this is your best summer ever.
"Are you sure that we are awake?
It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream." - William Shakespeare,
A Midsummer Night's Dream 
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0806/solmoon_ayiomamitis.jpg
"[Summer] solstice marks the northernmost point of the Sun's annual motion through planet Earth's sky and the astronomical beginning of the northern hemisphere's summer. But only two days ago, the Full Moon nearest the solstice rose close to the ecliptic plane opposite the Sun, near its southernmost point for the year. Astronomer Anthony Ayiomamitis recorded this dramatic picture of the solstice Full Moon rising above Cape Sounion, Greece. The twenty-four hundred year old Temple of Poseidon lies in the foreground, also visible to sailors on the Aegean Sea."
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Linear Mode
