99% of the population is in sunlight at the same time – Südtirol News

Yesterday, July 8, at 11:15 a.m., a very special moment apparently occurred: 99 percent of the world’s population was briefly exposed to sunlight at the same time. At least that’s what one user on Reddit claimed.

While 6.4 billion people were exposed to direct sunlight, 1.2 billion people were in the twilight at any given time. But is this really true?

A world map showing the day and night zones seems to support this claim.

The light blue color on the map stands for direct sunlight, while the darker blue represents the night when the sun was just below the horizon at that time. Twilight occurs where the sun is still below the horizon but there is still indirect sunlight. The affected areas are divided into three levels of twilight.

While people in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and most of Asia received sunlight, parts of Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Antarctica were in the shade.

But anyone who now thinks that 99 percent of the population has actually seen sunlight is wrong. Because the darkest phase of twilight is indistinguishable from night to the human eye.

This applies to about three percent of the world’s population – about 256.8 million people. People in some cities may also have difficulty noticing sunlight at dusk due to air pollution.

Anyone who missed the event yesterday should not worry too much about it: this phenomenon seems to repeat itself every year.

From: mk