08/07/2025
On July 8 at exactly 11:15 UTC, an extraordinary global phenomenon occurred: nearly 99% of Earth’s population experienced daylight or twilight at the same time. Only around 1% of people — primarily in regions such as Australia, New Zealand, parts of Southeast Asia, and Antarctica — were in complete darkness.
This rare alignment isn’t just a fluke of timing; it’s a result of how sunlight interacts with Earth’s geography and the distribution of its population. Most of the world’s population lives in the Northern Hemisphere. Following the June solstice — when the North Pole is tilted closest to the sun — daylight stretches across a wider area of the Northern Hemisphere. This positioning allows the sun’s light, including twilight, to reach nearly every densely populated region on Earth simultaneously.
The effect is especially prominent in the weeks surrounding the solstice, from mid-May to mid-July. During this period, Earth’s orientation to the sun causes overlapping zones of daylight and twilight across populated continents, peaking around 11:00 UTC daily.
While this moment may pass unnoticed for most, it’s a remarkable reminder of how interconnected our planet is — and how, for just a few minutes, almost everyone under the sky can stand together in the light.
