![2016 equinox date 2016 equinox date](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/53/35/0c/53350c7e6df6195d8a51065ff0ba8eb7--equinox--the-equinox.jpg)
Unfortunately, the new Julian calendar was 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the actual solar year. So to account for that residual quarter of a day, an extra day - leap day - was added to the calendar every four years. In 46 B.C., Julius Caesar's consulting astronomer, Sosigenes, knew from Egyptian experience that the solar year was about 365.25 days in length. Note that each year the occurrence of the equinox happens about 6 hours (or one-quarter of a day) later in the calendar: Let's look at the dates and times of the vernal equinoxes leading up to 2000. Rather, it is the leap year that we observed in the year 2000. (Image credit: NOAA) When a leap year set us back a dayįirst, that 2020 is a leap year (meaning that the month of February had one extra day) is not the reason for the early arrival of this year's equinox. NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured this image of the Earth at the spring equinox on March 20, 2013. There are two specific reasons for this variation of the date: leap years and daylight saving time. Why so early?Īs was noted, this will be the earliest that the vernal equinox will occur across the contiguous United States in 124 years. In the days that follow, the direct rays of the sun migrate to the north of the equator and the length of daylight in the Northern Hemisphere will correspondingly appear to increase. At that moment, the sun will appear directly overhead about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Gorontalo, a province of Indonesia - often referred to as the "Emerald of the Equator" - on the island of Sulawesi, on the equator in the Gulf of Tomini. This year it will occur on Thursday (March 19) at 11:49:28 p.m. Sun overhead from the Emerald of the EquatorĪstronomers can calculate the moment of the vernal equinox right down to the nearest second. At the latitude of New York, for instance, day and night are roughly equal a few days before the equinox, on St. In the fall, the autumnal equinox falls about four days after the autumnal equinox.The supposed equality of day and night gives us the Latin name "equinox," which means "equal night." But in reality, thanks to our atmosphere, the day is longer than the night at the equinox. According to the Pine River Observatory, an equilux is “the day that has equal hours and minutes of sun above and below the horizon.” The spring equilux occurs about four days before the spring equinox, which means it occurred on March 16. There’s also something called an “equilux,” which means “equal light” in Latin. The other three are the summer solstice, the autumnal equinox, and the winter solstice. The spring equinox lands on either March 20 or 21 every year and is one of the four seasonal astronomical events that impacts earth. “Vernal” means “of relating to spring” in Latin. The spring equinox is one of the two annual equinoxes where the sun shines directly on the equator and the length of day and night is nearly the same. The first day of spring is also known as the spring equinox, or the vernal equinox. #LookUp! Don't miss the #SpringEquinox tonight-there will be nearly an equal amount of day and night worldwide.