The fall season begins with the 9th hour of September. p.m. ET Thursday, a date officially recognized as the fall Equinox.
Solstices and equinoxes only occur twice in the year the days that begin fall as well as spring fall on equinoxes and those that begin winter and summer are solstices.
How do they differ?
How do you define an equinox?
When it is the equinox the Earth is not tilting either toward and away from the Sun so it gets the same amount of sunlight and darkness, as per the National Weather Service.
At the equinox, the name “Chicagohenge” emerges from the city’s soaring buildings
For those who live near the line of the equator, the sun appears to be right overhead around noon on those days. The night and day appear to be the same due to the curvature of the sun’s light, which allows the sun to appear higher than the horizon, even though it’s actually below it.
At the time of an equinox, daylight hours are a little longer in areas where the latitude is higher. When the equator is at its highest, daylight can last around 12 hours and 7 minutes. In a region where the latitude is 60 degrees or more, like at the North Pole, a day lasts for 13 hours 16 mins.
What is solstice?
The day before the solstice it is when you will notice that the Earth has reached its greatest tilt of 23.5 degrees either towards or away from the sun.
On the solstice of summer, there is a direct sun over the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere and is tilting towards the sun, which causes one of the most long days of each year. It’s winter time for the Southern Hemisphere and the Earth is moving towards the Sun.
The same thing happens with the winter solstice. It occurs during the Northern Hemisphere when the hemisphere is tilted towards the sun, which makes it the day that has the least amount of sun. The sun is located above the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere so it is summer in that region.
