On Saturday, July 8, 99 per cent of the world’s population – that’s nearly 8 billion people – were able to see sunlight at the same moment.
Click start to play today’s Spell It, where we learn how most of humanity saw the ‘waning’ light at the same time.
It happened at around 3pm, UAE time – sunlight reached a majority of people on Earth, although not everyone felt it at the same intensity. While people in Japan glimpsed just a hint of evening light, those in California, US, caught the first rays of dawn.
Still, the fact that just one per cent of people experienced complete darkness, while the rest saw the sun – on a planet that is a sphere – is remarkable. If you’re sad you missed it, don’t worry… the phenomenon occurs annually.
It’s something that first caught people’s attention last year, when a Reddit user posted a map of the world and wrote the seemingly outrageous statement: “Every year on July 8… approximately 99.164% of the world's population is between dawn and dusk.” The social post went viral, prompting a fact-checking investigation by Norway-based website Time and Date, which tracks temporal phenomena.
Their research found that the claim was true, but there were some caveats involved. Firstly, to include 99 per cent of the population, any and all light from the sun was taken into consideration – even dark twilight. In actuality, around 83 per cent of the world experienced ‘true daylight’, a period of time when the sun is between dawn and dusk.
Secondly, the phenomenon is not as rare as you might think. Time and Date found that between May and July, the world experiences a similar effect, where more than 98 per cent of humans get some light from the sun for a few minutes, simultaneously. The reason for this is partially because over 90 per cent of the world’s population lives in the Northern Hemisphere – the region that’s tilted closest to the sun during summer months.
Lastly, because of the way the Earth is tilted towards the sun, light falls on parts of the world where humanity is densely concentrated – on land. The region of the planet that experiences pure night at this time, is the Pacific Ocean, a massive area that covers over a third of the Earth. Simply put, fewer people are in this dark zone at any given time, because we can’t survive in water.
All things considered, the fact that over 99 per cent of humanity is bathed in sunlight at the same time may not be as magical and awe-inspiring as it first appears. Still, the phenomenon makes us realise we’re all part of the same planet, orbiting the same massive star, experiencing phenomena that are universal and that bind us together.
What do you think? Play today’s Spell It and tell us at games@gulfnews.com.
