Crowds of photographers have gathered in carefully selected spots in New York to witness a stunning sight known as “Manhattanhenge”. On Wednesday night, at 20:12 local time, all east-west streets on the city’s grid system were spectacularly illuminated by the setting sun.
The event happens twice a year and sees the sun framed perfectly by New York’s towering skyscrapers. It is hugely popular on social media where people share their best pictures. The name “Manhattanhenge” was coined by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson in 1996.
He was inspired by the UK’s Stonehenge, where the sun aligns with concentric circles of vertical stones on each of the solstices. During the New York phenomenon, the sun sets between the city’s skyscraper corridors and simultaneously illuminates the north and south sides of the streets. There are similar “henge” phenomena in other cities with large numbers of skyscrapers and long straight streets – such as Chicago, Montreal and Toronto.
Credit: BBC
