Editing 1622: Henge

Cueball's reply: ''Oh, cool - like the Manhattan thing'', is a reference to {{W|Manhattanhenge}}, a phenomenon occurring twice a year that causes the setting sun to align with the east-west streets of the main grid of {{w|Manhattan}}, {{W|New York City|New York}}, causing a very special light display. Manhattanhenge is itself named after {{W|Stonehenge}}, an ancient monument consisting of several large stones, where the heel stone and the embanked avenue are aligned to the sunset of the {{W|winter solstice}} and the opposing sunrise of the {{W|summer solstice}} (thus creating on purpose the effect seen today in Manhattan, on specially intended dates). Hence the title of the comic, which was released less than a week after the winter solstice which fell on 2015-12-22.

After a beat panel Cueball, however, realizes that one could make the setting sun line up with almost any two arbitrary trees on any given day. This is due to the fact that the trees are effectively zero-dimensional points on the surface rather than one-dimensional lines like street grids. So any two trees that are close together with one tree further north would allow a setting sun to set between them; the viewer of the sunset could simply move themselves to make the alignment work. This is opposed to Stonehenge/Manhattanhenge, which requires the sun to align with a straight line, and only works on a few days a year.

The twist comes when Ponytail and Megan actually attempt to capture the setting sun with a {{w|butterfly net}}, as it is revealed that the sun is somehow setting at the actual point between the two trees rather than behind the trees when viewed from the east side. This is of course not possible in real life,{{Citation needed}} but in the comic's last panel and in the title text the girls continue with their successful though surrealistic plan.

If this was indeed our {{w|Sun}} that they had somehow shrunk and cooled enough to captured with a butterfly net, transfer to a bag and bring it home, this would on xkcd terms be no more strange than many of the strange [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|powers]] of [[Beret Guy]]. If this would indeed happen, then since {{w|Earth}} and the rest of the {{w|solar system}} is now missing its central star there would be a ton of problems for everyone on Earth. So the girls would probably be able to get a lot of money in ransom for releasing the sun, but in the title text it turns out that they are just going to sell the Sun on-line.

 

 

The title text refers to {{w|Craigslist}}, a web site where the girls plans to offer the sun for sale in hopes of getting rich. Craigslist is a {{w|classified advertisements}} website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, items wanted, etc. One of the girls tells that she was uncertain as to under which category she should list a "Sun for sale". But she put it under property (as in real estate). To advertise the "property" she put "''that it has 'good sun exposure''", a common description of real estate. Being the sun itself you could claim that it is well located compared to the Sun, but it will never really see any sun light itself as the only "sun" light that hits the Sun is the light from other stars which is very dim.