Answer: C. Sun-stand

The word is derived from Latin sol and sistere, meaning stand, because at the solstices the sun stands still on the horizon before reversing direction.

Answer: 20–22nd June

Even though most people consider 21st June to be summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, it can occur anytime between 20th and 22nd of June. The variation is due to changes in the Earth’s orbital speed.

Answer: Midwinter sunset

Both may have been important, but the midwinter sunset would have been in front of people approaching and entering Stonehenge, suggesting it was more important. Also, evidence from animal bones from the nearby Neolithic settlement at Durrington Walls shows that people were gathering there for feasts and rituals at midwinter.

Answer: Heel Stone

The Heel Stone may once have had a partner stone, discovered during excavations in 1979, and the sun probably rose between the two stones. Today it rises slightly to the left of the Heel Stone.

Answer: William Stukeley

Stukeley pioneered the study of prehistoric monuments; surveying, sketching and carefully observing earthworks and monuments. His influential book on Stonehenge was published in 1740. 

Answer: South-west

The stones of Stonehenge were carefully arranged around the solstice axis. The midsummer sun rises in the north-east and, 180° in the opposite direction, the midwinter sun sets. 

Answer: A. 1870s

We know that people started to visit to observe the summer solstice after a lecture given at the site by Dr John Thurnam in 1860, with small groups attending and numbers increasing in the following decade. Apparently there were 3,000 people there in 1891!

Answer: Station Stones

These stones, placed just inside the ditch that surrounds Stonehenge, mark out a rectangle. The short sides are parallel to the solstice axis, and the long side appears to align with a lunar event, the southernmost moonrise at major standstill (the lunar equivalent to the solstice).

Answer: Buzz Aldrin

Buzz visited Stonehenge with his family during a trip to the UK. He used the visit to promote his ShareSpace Foundation, and his mission for people to travel to and colonise Mars. During their tour, he asked us where we kept the aliens! 

Answer: Woodhenge 

The timber posts at Woodhenge were set out in an oval on the same north-east to south-west axis as Stonehenge. The horizon to the south-west prevents a view of midwinter sunset, so the monument was probably aligned on the midsummer sunrise.

Answer: Gerald Hawkins

Gerald Hawkins used an early IBM computer to analyse the astronomy of Stonehenge, finding hundreds of possible alignments. He came up with a theory that the Aubrey Holes, just inside the bank and ditch, had been used to predict lunar eclipses, claiming that Stonehenge was a ‘Neolithic computer’. Many of his ideas have now been disproved.

Answer: B. 16 hrs and 35 mins

On the longest day of 2020, sunrise will be at 4.52am and sunset at 9.27pm. Because the solstice is when the sun ‘stands still’, the times of sunrise and sunset only change incrementally and the sun roughly rises and sets in the same place for a few days either side.

Answer: Bryn Celli Ddu

The passage tomb of Bryn Celli Ddu is aligned so that at midsummer, the rising sun shines down the passage and into the inner chamber. It was built in about 3000 BC, about 500 years before the stones were set up at Stonehenge, and is one of several passage tombs in Ireland, North Wales and Orkney that align with the solstices.

Answer: C. The moment when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer.

In 2020 the summer solstice will occur on Saturday 20 June at 21:43 GMT. As the solstice is independent of the specific rotation of the Earth, strangely it can occur even during the middle of the night!

Answer: Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock

The Stonehenge Skyscape website allows you to see a webcam version of the sky above Stonehenge, and at night, a computer-generated view of the stars. Maggie told us that she hoped the website would inspire people all over the world to go outside, and look up.