Almost Everyone On Earth Just Experienced A Rare Ray Of Sunshine

99 percent of the Earth's population have just got to enjoy the sunshine at the exact same time, in a phenomenon that happens just once a year.

While you're enjoying this beautifully sunny Friday that's about to send the UK into a major heatwave today (8 July), you might be pleased to know that you were probably soaking up the sun with almost everyone else in the world.

At exactly 11.15am this morning, approximately 7.7 billion people were on the side of the planet illuminated by the sun - between dawn and dusk.

While 6.4 billion (or 83 percent) of those people were experiencing daytime, 1.2 billion (or 16 percent) were in twilight.

In a Day and Night World Map by timeanddate.com, we can see the positions of the sun and moon at any given time.

According to the map, at 11.15am, the vast majority of land is clearly in daylight. Between daylight and night, there are a few varying shades of grey.

These represent different states of twilight: civil twilight, nautical twilight, and astronomical twilight.

While the sun will gradually slip below the horizon during twilight, there is still some indirect sunlight shining through.

As a result, Australia, New Zealand, some parts of Southeast Asia, and Antarctica were the only major landmasses to miss out on the sun this morning. That represents 256.8 million people, or 3 percent of the world's population.

Sharing the details on social media this week, meteorologist for Maryland television station WBAL-TV Tony Pann told his Twitter followers: "Once a year, for a rare moment at 7:15 AM EDT on July 8th, 99% of the world's population will be in the Sun.

"About 6.4 billion people in the daytime, while more than 1.2 billion people experience twilight. How cool is that!"

While thousands were blown away by the little-known fact, some were more focused on bullying the Aussies.

"This is cool. Little reminder that we are on this ride together" one person tweeted.

This event happens every year on 8 July which, you might notice, is not the date of the summer solstice - the day when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky, resulting in the most daylight hours each year.

A simple explanation for this (and don't ask us for more than that) is that, technically, while the sun does technically cover more ground and reach more people at the same time on July 8, more humans will experience the sunlight together on June 21.

That's thanks to the brightness of the twilight zone on June 21. Civil twilight - the brightest twilight phase - lasts much longer on the summer solstice than it does at 11.15am GMT on July 8, meaning that the sun is more visible for longer, according to the human eye.

So, while today might not be as monumental as a summer solstice, at least we can all say we enjoyed the sunshine together. Except for you, Australia.

Class dismissed!

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