The two days of the year when the sun rose exactly due east and set exactly due west marked the equinoxes.Īrchaeologists believe a number of prehistoric sites were used by ancient peoples to track the position of the sun and predict equinoxes and solstices. The sun’s southernmost point marked the winter solstice, or shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, when the North Pole was tilted the farthest from the sun. The summer solstice would occur when the sun reached its northernmost point, marking the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. People observed that the sun’s rising and setting points moved slightly each day of the year. Ancient CulturesĪncient cultures didn’t have clocks to calculate minutes of daytime and nighttime, but they could measure the sun’s position geometrically. The reverse is true in the Southern Hemisphere where the September equinox signals the first day of spring. In the Northern Hemisphere, the September equinox marks the first day of fall. The equinox marks the point of the year where this transition occurs, and on the equinox the part of Earth closest to the sun is the equator, rather than places north or south. Then, as the Earth continues to move around the sun at its fixed angle, the North Pole is tilted slightly away from the sun. For half the year, the North Pole is tilted slightly toward the sun, bringing longer days to the Northern Hemisphere, while the South Pole is tilted slightly away from the sun, bringing fewer hours of sunlight to the Southern Hemisphere. On the equinox, day and night are of nearly equal length across the planet.Īs the Earth orbits the sun, it is tilted at a fixed angle. Equinox comes from the Latin words “aequi,” which means equal, and “nox,” or night.
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