{"id":630397,"date":"2026-09-20T10:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T10:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/630397\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T10:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T10:48:09","slug":"apod-2026-september-20-analemma-over-the-callanish-stones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/630397\/","title":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 September 20 \u2013 Analemma over the Callanish Stones"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tExplanation: If you went outside at the same time every day and took a picture that included the Sun<\/a>, how would the Sun’s position change? A visual answer to that question is an analemma<\/a>, a composite image taken from the same spot at the same time over the course of a year. The featured analemma<\/a> was composed from images taken every few days at noon near the village of Callanish<\/a> in the Outer Hebrides<\/a> in Scotland<\/a>, UK<\/a>. In the foreground are the Callanish<\/a> Stones<\/a>, a stone circle built around 2700 BC during humanity’s Bronze Age<\/a>. It is not known if the placement of the Callanish Stones<\/a> has or had astronomical significance. The ultimate causes for the figure-8<\/a> shape of this and all analemmas are the tilt of the Earth axis<\/a> and the ellipticity<\/a> of the Earth’s orbit<\/a> around the Sun<\/a>. At the solstice<\/a>s, the Sun will appear at the top or bottom of an analemma. The featured image was taken near the December solstice and so the Sun appears near the bottom. Equinox<\/a>es, however, correspond to analemma middle points — not the intersection point<\/a>. In two days there will be an equinox<\/a> (“equal night”), when day and night are equal over all of planet Earth. Many cultures celebrate<\/a> a change of season at an equinox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

APOD’s main NASA site is moving<\/a>: From apod.nasa.gov<\/a> to science.nasa.gov\/apod<\/a>
Tomorrow’s picture: open space<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Explanation: If you went outside at the same time every day and took a picture that included the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[243471,61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-630397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-apod","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}