For centuries, people from all over the world have converged on Stonehenge, the monolithic monument located in the Salisbury Plain of southwest England. We know that the Salisbury Plain has been settled since the Bronze Age at the latest, between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago. While there are plenty of other monuments around Stonehenge, this ancient time-keeping monument has long been the source of global attention.
Archeologists and travelers alike have recognized how the Sun influenced the design of Stonehenge. The central axis of Stonehenge has been aligned with the sunrise during midsummer and with the sunset during midwinter. The stones beautifully frame the rising and setting of the Sun on the shortest and longest days of the year, providing an ancient but effective way of measuring when days were at their longest and shortest.
For centuries, it was assumed that only the Sun influenced the design of Stonehenge, but that may not be the case any longer. Actually, the concept of Stonehenge also being linked to the Moon has been around for decades, if not longer. The theory started gaining popularity in the 1960s, even though it was never explored in depth.
That’s set to change this summer, as archeologists are planning to use a lunar phenomenon that most people don’t even know about to determine the role that the Moon played in the design and construction of Stonehenge. The event that these scientists will be using only happens once every 18.6 years, so this will be the only chance to dive deeper into this relationship until 2043.