During the first week in January, the Earth is about 1.6 million miles closer to the sun. This means that the distance between the Earth and Sun, which is 93 million miles on average, varies throughout the year. We all know that the Earth makes a complete revolution around the sun once every 365 days, following an orbit that is elliptical in shape. Naval Observatory. An alternative text link is found here. In the Northern Hemisphere, it occurs when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, which is located at 23.5° south of the equator and runs through Australia, Chile, southern Brazil, and northern South Africa.įor a complete listing of the dates of the winter and summer solstices and spring and fall equinoxes through 2025, check out this site from the U.S. The winter solstice marks the shortest day and longest night of the year. For every place north of the Tropic of Cancer, the sun is at its highest point in the sky and this is the longest day of the year. The summer solstice occurs when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer, which is located at 23.5° latitude North and runs through Mexico, the Bahamas, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and southern China. Therefore, on the day of the summer solstice, the sun appears at its highest elevation with a noontime position that changes very little for several days before and after the summer solstice.
The summer solstice occurs at the moment the earth's tilt toward/from the sun is at a maximum. Therefore, on the equinox and for several days before and after the equinox, the length of day will range from about 12 hours and six and one-half minutes at the equator, to 12 hours and 8 minutes at 30 degrees latitude, to 12 hours and 16 minutes at 60 degrees latitude. Additionally, the days become a little longer at the higher latitudes (those at a distance from the equator) because it takes the sun longer to rise and set. The "nearly" equal hours of day and night are due to refraction of sunlight or a bending of the light's rays that causes the sun to appear above the horizon when the actual position of the sun is below the horizon. At the equator, the sun is directly overhead at noon on these two equinoxes. The word equinox is derived from two Latin words - aequus (equal) and nox (night). These events are referred to as Equinoxes. The “southward equinox”-known in the northern hemisphere as the fall or autumnal equinox-is an important “quarter day” in the Earth’s journey around the sun, signalling the end of summer and the beginning of astronmical autumn.There are only two times of the year when the Earth's axis is tilted neither toward nor away from the sun, resulting in a "nearly" equal amount of daylight and darkness at all latitudes. They’re global events occurring simultaneously for everyone on the planet. Equinoxes occur twice per year, in late March and lat September. EDT it’s the moment equinox, which marks the precise time when the midday sun crosses the equator somewhere on Earth. Saturday, September 23: Autumnal EquinoxĪt 2:50 a.m. It will be visible about 10º above the horizon-which is very high, for the closest planet to the sun-about 30 minutes before sunrise. It’s also one of the best days of the 2023 to see Mercury, though you’ll need binoculars and an alarm clock. It also marks the point in the stargazer’s month when the waxing gibbous moon’s glare increasingly bleaches the night sky, making it more difficult to see stars and faint deep-sky objects. Tonight the moon reaches its First Quarter phase, when its near-side appears to us on Earth to be half-lit. The 7-day old First Quarter Moon (Photo by: VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Universal Images Group via Getty Images Friday, September 22: First Quarter Moon And Mercury Rising
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