Xinhua News Agency, Nanjing, June 21 (Reporter Zhu Xiao and Wang Jue Ping) The “Chinese Astronomical Calendar” shows that the summer solstice will be celebrated at 17:14 on June 21, Beijing time. As one of the “half-two-solstice” solar terms, the summer solstice is of great significance in both astronomy and daily life.
According to the statement in the “Copyon of the Constitution”: “The northern reaches of the sun, the length of the sun reaches, and the shadow of the sun reaches the shortest, so it is called the summer solstice.” Zhang Yang, director of the Science Department of the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced that in astronomy, the summer solstice refers to the summer solstice. The moment when the sun travels to the northernmost point from the equator and directly hits the Tropic of Cancer. When the summer solstice comes, the day in the northern hemisphere is the longest, the sun at noon is the highest, and the shadow of vertical objects is the shortest.
Regarding the summer solstice, there are folk sayings that “the summer solstice is not hot” and “the summer solstice is three volts”. Zhang Yang explained that on the summer solstice, although the day is the longest and the sun altitude is the highest, the temperature on that day is not the highest in the year. Because the heat near the surface is still accumulating at this time, the temperature tends to continue to rise in the dozens of days after the summer solstice.
“At the summer solstice, the key words for my country’s weather are high temperature, humidity and frequent thunderstorms.” Jiang Xiaodong, an associate professor at the School of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Technology, said that at this time, most areas in China have entered summer except the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the central and northern regions of Northeast my country. The North China Plain is hot and sunny, while the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Jianghuai region are in the peak period of Meiyu, which is the period with the most rainfall throughout the year.
Around the summer solstice is also an important period for agricultural production. Zhang Binbin, an associate researcher at the Fruit Tree Research Institute of the Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said that during the summer solstice, early rice entered a critical period for yield formation, and vegetables and fruit trees gradually entered the peak harvest season. In order to celebrate the harvest and worship ancestors and gods, the ancients often held activities such as offering sacrifices to ancestors, land gods, and water gods on the summer solstice.
In Beijing, Shandong and other places, there is a custom of eating noodles on the summer solstice. The ancients chose to eat noodles on this day because they hoped to eat “shorter” days. In Nanjing, Jiangsu, people choose to make pea cakes on the day of the summer solstice, also known as “summer solstice cakes”, which not only appetizers to cool off the heat, but also symbolize rising, safe and healthy.Return to Sohu, see more
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