This year, it will reopen to visitors Tuesday, March 23. It closed during 2020’s spring equinox, too. Mexico’s Chichén Itzá, normally a very popular and crowded Mayan site during solstices and equinoxes, will be closed to visitors from March 20 to March 22 (Saturday to Monday), according to the Yucatan Times.

Stonehenge is set to reopen to the public on April 12, according to the English Heritage website, too late for this year’s vernal equinox. But because of the winter Covid-19 surge, the United Kingdom went into another lockdown. In England, the mysterious stone structure of Stonehenge usually plays host to crowds during equinoxes and solstices.

Just go outside around sunset or sunrise and notice the location of the sun on the horizon with respect to familiar landmarks.”īecause of the pandemic, celebrations will continue to be canceled or altered to fit safety needs. The equinoxes are the only two times a year the sun rises due east and sets due west for everyone on the planet.ĮarthSky says the equinox is “a good day for finding east and west from your yard or other favorite site for watching the sky. If you’re a sky watcher, the website EarthSky points out the equinoxes - spring or autumn - are a superb time to orient yourself. We got that truly equal day/night split a few days before the official spring equinox. This bending of light rays “causes the sun to appear above the horizon when the actual position of the sun is below the horizon.” The day is a bit longer at higher latitudes than at the equator because it takes the sun longer to rise and set the closer you get to the poles. How does that happen when it’s supposed to be 12 hours of day and 12 hours night? As the US National Weather Service explains, the “nearly” equal hours of day and night are because of the complex way a sunrise is measured and the refraction of sunlight in our atmosphere. It turns out you actually get a little more daylight than darkness on the equinox - and how much so depends where you are on the planet. That’s why it gets increasingly hot as we head toward the summer solstice in June.īy the way, the equinoxes aren’t exactly ‘equal’ And now here we are at the spring equinox! Going forward, the Northern Hemisphere will be more exposed to the sun than the Southern Hemisphere. (That’s why it stays dark for so long each day during the winter in places such as Scandinavia and Alaska.)īut since the winter solstice three months ago in December, you’ve noticed that our days have been getting longer in the Northern Hemisphere and the nights shorter. Those are the solstices, and they have the most extreme differences between day and night, especially near the poles. The effect is at its maximum in late June and late December. This discrepancy in sunlight is what triggers the seasons.

That positions one hemisphere of the planet to get more sunlight than the other for half of the year’s orbit around the sun. However, the axis tilts at 23.5 degrees, as NASA explains. It’s called the axis, and this rotation is what gives us day and night. The Earth rotates along an imaginary line that runs from North Pole to South Pole. They get roughly 12 hours of daylight and nighttime year round. So for Argentinians, South Africans and Australians, among others, this is a time to look forward to cooler weather and the joys of autumn.įor people who reside near the equator (in places such as Quito, Ecuador, or Singapore), none of this is a big deal. While folks in the Northern Hemisphere are looking forward to longer days, warmer weather, flowers and a burst of greenery, people living south of the equator are heading into fall.

Spring equinox 2021 images