Concept
Solstice
Related concepts (31)
Full moon
The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180°). This means that the lunar hemisphere facing Earth—the near side—is completely sunlit and appears as an approximately circular disk. The full moon occurs roughly once a month. The time interval between a full moon and the next repetition of the same phase, a synodic month, averages about 29.
Solar term
A solar term (or jieqi, ) is any of twenty-four periods in traditional Chinese lunisolar calendars that matches a particular astronomical event or signifies some natural phenomenon. The points are spaced 15° apart along the ecliptic and are used by lunisolar calendars to stay synchronized with the seasons, which is crucial for agrarian societies. The solar terms are also used to calculate intercalary months; which month is repeated depends on the position of the sun at the time.
Cahokia
The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site kəˈhoʊkiə (11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south-western Illinois between East St. Louis and Collinsville. The park covers , or about , and contains about 80 manmade mounds, but the ancient city was much larger. At its apex around 1100 CE, the city covered about and included about 120 earthworks in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and functions.
Sun path
Sun path, sometimes also called day arc, refers to the daily and seasonal arc-like path that the Sun appears to follow across the sky as the Earth rotates and orbits the Sun. The Sun's path affects the length of daytime experienced and amount of daylight received along a certain latitude during a given season. The relative position of the Sun is a major factor in the heat gain of buildings and in the performance of solar energy systems.
Position of the Sun
The position of the Sun in the sky is a function of both the time and the geographic location of observation on Earth's surface. As Earth orbits the Sun over the course of a year, the Sun appears to move with respect to the fixed stars on the celestial sphere, along a circular path called the ecliptic. Earth's rotation about its axis causes diurnal motion, so that the Sun appears to move across the sky in a Sun path that depends on the observer's geographic latitude.
Analemma
In astronomy, an analemma (ˌænəˈlɛmə; ) is a diagram showing the position of the Sun in the sky as seen from a fixed location on Earth at the same mean solar time, as that position varies over the course of a year. The diagram will resemble a figure eight. Globes of Earth often display an analemma as a two-dimensional figure of equation of time vs. declination of the Sun. The north–south component of the analemma results from the change in the Sun's declination due to the tilt of Earth's axis of rotation.
Timber circle
In archaeology, timber circles are rings of upright wooden posts, built mainly by ancient peoples in the British Isles and North America. They survive only as gapped rings of post-holes, with no evidence they formed walls, making them distinct from palisades. Like stone circles, it is believed their purpose was ritual, ceremonial, and/or astronomical. Timber circles in the British Isles date to the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. The posts themselves have long since disappeared and the sites are identified from the rings of postholes that they stood in.
Yule
Yule (also called Jul, jól or joulu) is a winter festival historically observed by the Germanic peoples that was incorporated into Christmas during the Christianisation of the Germanic peoples and in the modern period is celebrated separate to the Christian festival by adherents of some new religious movements such as Modern Germanic paganism. Scholars have connected the original celebrations of Yule to the Wild Hunt, the god Odin, and the heathen Anglo-Saxon Mōdraniht ("Mothers' Night").
Poverty Point
Poverty Point State Historic Site/Poverty Point National Monument (Pointe de Pauvreté; 16 WC 5) is a prehistoric earthwork constructed by the Poverty Point culture, located in present-day northeastern Louisiana. Evidence of the Poverty Point culture extends throughout much of the Southeastern Woodlands of the Southern United States. The culture extended across the Mississippi Delta and south to the Gulf Coast. The Poverty Point site has been designated as a state historic site, U.S. National Monument, a U.
Bonfire
A bonfire is a large and controlled outdoor fire, used either for informal disposal of burnable waste material or as part of a celebration. The earliest recorded uses of the word date back to the late 15th century, with the Catholicon Anglicum spelling it as banefyre and John Mirk's Book of Festivals speaking of a communal fire in celebrations of Saint John's Eve that "was clene bones & no wode & that is callid a bone fyre". The word is thus a compound of "bone" and "fire.