Sun to strike NY streets in magical ‘Manhattanhenge’
Sun aligns at dusk with streets:
US: It is dubbed “Manhattanhenge” and happens two times a year when
the Sun aligns at dusk with streets in a glowing magic trick as rays of
sunlight span across New York perfectly, from west to east.
“Manhattanhenge may just be a unique urban phenomenon in the world,”
says astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson, of the American Museum of
Natural History, who officially discovered the phenomenon. The name
“Manhattanhenge” is a play on Manhattan, this city’s most famous
borough, and Stonehenge, the megalithic monument in southern England
with large stone blocks set out in concentric circles.
At Stonehenge, the Sun crosses the site’s central axis during the
summer and winter solstices, leading experts to speculate that the site
could have been used as a sort of sun calendar, as well as for religious
ceremonies. But in Manhattan, the phenomenon takes place before and
after the solstices when at dusk but before sunset, the Sun neatly
matches up with the even-numbered streets running west and east, sending
out fingers of light.
“As a kid I visited Stonehenge in the Salisbury Plain of England and
did research on other stone monuments across the British Isles,”
DeGrasse Tyson told AFP.
“So I was, in a way, imprinted by the emotional power that
terrestrial alignments with the Sun can have on a culture or
civilization.” And New York’s phenomenon is more unusual than it may
seem, he says. “Any city crossed by a rectangular grid can identify days
where the setting Sun aligns with their streets.
But a closer look at such cities around the world shows them to be
less than ideal for this purpose,” he stressed. DeGrasse Tyson first
started thinking about the “Manhattanhenge” effect back in 1996. It was
not until five years later, July 2001, that he took a photo of the
Sun-meets-skyscrapers display.
It and others were published in 2002 in a special edition of Natural
History Magazine called “City of Stars,” he said. And the effect began
to become better known. This year, the effect took place May 30 — before
the June 21 solstice — and now it will be seen again on Wednesday July
13, though it can be seen partially one day earlier.
In wintertime, the phenomenon is seen around December 5 and January
8. But weather conditions tend not to be ideal, and make it hard for
anyone to spot. To get a good take on the event, DeGrasse Tyson
recommends that you “position yourself as far east in Manhattan as
possible.”
Some of the streets where the show shines best are 14th, 23rd, 34th
and 42nd, offering incredible views of the Empire State building and the
Chrysler building.
The American Museum of Natural History is offering on Tuesday a
special program at the Hayden Planetarium with a visual tour of “Manhattanhenge.”
New York, Tuesday, AFP
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