The disappearance of the “Shadow of the Kaaba”… a unique astronomical phenomenon in the Makkah sky

On Sunday, the skies of Mecca witness a unique astronomical phenomenon, when the sun is perpendicular to the Kaaba during the noon prayer time.

The event will occur at 12:18 p.m. (9:18 a.m. GMT) and will be “the first vertical of the Sun this year.”Jeddah Astronomical Society“.

The sun will be vertical at its maximum height of approximately 90 degrees, and the shadow of the Kaaba and the shadows of all objects in Makkah will completely disappear, and the shadow of the meridian will become zero.

At this time, the sun will be tilted in the sky in distant regions, the association said.

Occurs twice every year

Kapha is located between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer, resulting in the vertical incidence of the Sun.

During the Sun’s apparent movement across the sky, it becomes direct with Kapha when it moves from the equator to Cancer in May.

This occurs when the Sun turns south from the Tropic of Cancer to the Equator in July.

All regions located at latitudes less than 23.5 degrees north and south experience this event twice a year, but at different times depending on the latitude of the location, and it is characterized by some locations that are limited between the equator and the tropics. Capricorn, according to the Astronomical Society.

According to the Astronomical Society in Jeddah, the perpendicular phenomenon was one of the methods used by the ancients to more accurately determine the direction of the Qibla, using a piece of “wood” set perpendicular to the Earth’s surface. .”

At the time of verticality, the opposite direction of the shadow is towards the Kaaba for all those living in the Arab countries far away from Mecca and in the neighboring regions of the North Pole, Africa, Europe, China, Russia and East Asia. .

The fact that the sun is perpendicular is used in calculating the “circumference of the world” without the need for modern technologies, using some simple rules of geometry, a method dating back two thousand years, and indicating the “sphericity. of the earth.”