The word solstice means 'sun standing' in Latin. It marks the point when the sun stops at its most northerly or southerly point, relative to the equator. Before reversing direction, the summer solstice, the sun would appear at its highest point in the sky, and is the day with the longest period of daylight. It happens twice a year, once in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The summer solstice in the northern hemisphere occurs around the 21st of June, but it does not always occur on this day. As it all depends on when the sun reaches its northernmost point from the celestial equator, it can happen between the 20th to the 22nd of June. Around this time in areas north of the arctic circle, it is possible to witness the sun not set at all, so a dubbed land of the midnight sun for this very reason. This occurs because the earth's rotational axis is tilted. The earth rotates around an axis inclined at an angle of 23.5 degrees in relation to its orbital plane around the sun. It is this tilt that gives us our seasons. Summer occurs in the hemisphere that is tilted towards the sun, whilst winter falls on the hemisphere that is tilted away from the sun.