Today, (Saturday, July 8) you will be experiencing something at the same time as 99% of the world’s population.
Last year, an internet meme claiming 99% of the world’s population gets sunlight at the same time on July 8 was confirmed to be true.
While it might seem impossible, time zone website timeanddate.com found that most of the world’s population really does receive some degree of sunlight at the same moment each year.
July 8 is described as the ‘perfect day’, when at 12.15pm BST, dawn begins on the North American west coast while it’s still dusk in East and Southeast Asia – and this year is no different.
The claim first appeared three years ago on a Reddit post, where user GiddySwine shared an image from a day and night world map, claiming that 99% of the world’s population was between dawn and dusk on July 8 at 11:15 UTC.
A more widely circulated version on Twitter claimed that 99% of the population experiences daylight at that moment, saying that this day should have a name and should be a holiday.
How can it be true?
From the image, you can tell that nearly all of the world’s most populated areas receive some sunlight at the time in question, including North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and most of Asia.
The only big areas not covered by daylight are Australia, New Zealand, parts of Southeast Asia, and Antarctica. Does that take away just 1% of the world’s population?
Timeanddate.com claims they ran the numbers and found that around 7.7 billion people get some degree of sunlight at that particular time and day.
For their calculations, they combined the website’s Sun data with the 2022 population data from the Center for International Earth Science Information Network.
The numbers revealed that at the moment in question, it was night time for just under 80 million people.
That left about 7.7 billion people roughly – 99% of us – on the side of the planet illuminated by the Sun.
More than 6.4 billion humans were in the daytime, while more than 1.2 billion were experiencing twilight.
So, with 83% of us getting direct sunlight and another 16% getting indirect sunlight, the claims are correct to an extent.
The only glitch was they counted in the three per cent that experiencing ‘astronomical twilight’, which some people might consider as night. However, it’s that moment right before dawn and after sunset with some faint rays of sunlight.
People in urban areas will especially mistake twilight for the night thanks to light pollution that can blend out the faint glow of the Sun, which is 6-12 degrees below the horizon at that point.
In fact, this happens on a whole range of dates – but only around a specific time of day.
So, mark your calendars for that perfect moment you can share with most of humanity.
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