A group of scientists may have ended an argument raging for years -- which will be the first inhabited place on earth to see the new millennium? The scientists say Hakepa Hill on Pitt Island, east of New Zealand, will see the first dawn of the millennium break at exactly 1603.40 GMT Dec.31, 1999 -- or 0403.30 local time Jan. 1, 2000. On the uninhabited Chatham Islands, dawn will break 3 minutes earlier. They arrived at this conclusion using the formula "sunrise - 0.99727 (right ascension minus east longitude plus/minus cosine to the power of -1 (negative tangent of latitude times tangent of declination) minus (GMT at 0 hours universal time)."

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03:15 AM ET 11/27/97
Scientists solve riddle of millennium sunrise

By David Fox

The scientists, writing in the latest edition of The Geographical Journal, say Hakepa Hill on Pitt Island, east of New Zealand, will see the first dawn of the millennium break at exactly 1603.40 GMT on December 31, 1999 -- or 0403.30 local time on January 1, 2000.

But anyone wishing to beat Pitt Islanders to the millennium should venture further south east to the uninhabited Chatham Islands, where dawn will break three minutes earlier, they say.

And how did they arrive at this conclusion? Simple, just use the formula "sunrise - 0.99727 (right ascension minus east longitude plus/minus cosine to the power of -1 (negative tangent of latitude times tangent of declination) minus (GMT at 0 hours universal time)."

A number of islands in the South Pacific have been planning lucrative millennium tours, promising visitors they will be the first to see in the year 2000.

Last year the Tongan government was reported to be considering introducing daylight saving time so that it could pip New Zealand to the millennium post, while residents of Kiribati were reported to have asked for the dateline to be shifted to make their day begin an hour earlier.

The scientists say neither tactic would be valid. "The arbitrary and unilateral moving of time zones or the international date line does not give rise to any level of credibility in the international navigation community," they wrote.

"Any claim on the first millennium sunrise from a place geographically quite removed from the traditional dateline lacks sensibility, as any country in the world could do the same."

The scientists say the public can be forgiven for being baffled over the debate. "The concept of time and its measurement on earth, being an intellectual construct, makes this confusion... understandable," they wrote.

The Journal, which is distributed to fellows of the Royal Geographical Society, said the place where the first sunrise will actually be seen lies in the Southern Ocean, just north of Scott Island in the Belleny Basin.

The sunrise will not be seen further southeast on Antarctica because that ice and snow-covered continent has a permanent night or day, depending on the time of year.

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