Are you ready for fall? The official arrival of autumn is the fall equinox, which occurs on Monday in the northern hemisphere.
After a hot summer, the September equinox marks a welcome change in the seasons for many people. But what is an Equinox? It’s all about earth and its relationship with the sun. Here’s how to understand, visualize and celebrate the fall equinox.
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When is the falling equinox?
This year, the fall equinox in the northern hemisphere fell on Monday, September 22. If you want to be more specific and mark it on your calendar, mark it at 11:19 PT.
The dates can change slightly for equinoxes depending on the year, but it was still at that time in September. The following vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere takes place on March 20, 2026 and will mark the beginning of spring.
What is Equinox autumn?
The meaning of the equinox is there in the name: a combination of the Latin words for equality and the night.
“There is only twice of the year when the axis of the earth is not tilted either towards or far from the sun, causing an” almost “quantity of day and darkness to all the latitudes,” said the National Weather Service in an explanator on the seasons.
An illustration of NASA shows the angle of the inclination of the earth with respect to the sun.
The earth turns on an axis (imagine a line flowing from pole to pole) and the planet has a spicy 23.5 degree tilt. The inclination is what gives us seasons. While the earth orbits the sun, the inclination means that certain areas of the planet get more direct sun than others. This is how it can be summer in the northern hemisphere (tilted towards the sun) and winter in the southern hemisphere (inclined far from the sun) at the same time. During the equinox, the sun shines straight for the equator and gives an equal love to the two hemispheres.
Other planets which are also tilted on their axes of rotation also experience equinoxes. Time scales can however be very different. An equinox on Saturn only occurs every 15 years in the earth. This means that each season lasts more than seven years on Saturn. It is even wilder on Neptune, which has seasons in recent decades. We can be grateful for the relatively short seasons of our planet.
What does an equinox look like?
Wherever you are on earth on the day of the equinox (and whether it is a spring equinox or falls, depending on the hemisphere in which you live), the sun will rise so close to the east and will take place as close as possible to the West, which makes it an infallible compass. Take out and look at the sunset and sunrise, and note the landmarks in front of the sun. In this way, you will always know what is exactly west and east.
The two annual equinoxes also have the sunrise and the fastest sunset of the year, the sun taking only a few seconds to appear and disappear. This is because it is the steepest angle to which the sun rises and goes to bed during the year.
How is an equinox different from a solstice?
This graph of the National Weather Service shows the inclination of the earth, how it orbits the sun and when the equinoxes and the solstices occur in the northern hemisphere.
As with equinoxes, solstices are associated with the inclination of the earth, but instead of day and night light, the days and nights are at their extremes. The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, while the summer solstice is the longest. This year, the winter solstice for the northern hemisphere fell on Sunday, December 21.
What does the space equinox look like?
Observation satellites in orbit have a unique view of the equinox. A video of the Nasa earth observatory shows the land of space and how the positioning of sunlight moves with the change of the seasons. It is a great way to visualize what is happening during the orbit of our planet around the sun.
Celebrate the autumn Equinox
Fall means that it is time for the foliage of autumn tourist adventures.
Equinoxes are not like eclipses or meteors. There is not a big Wow moment where you see something spectacular. The fall equinox this year will look like any other day, but it is a practical way to mark the change in astronomical seasons. You can go around and declare: “It’s officially the first day of fall!” How you celebrate depends on you. Here is a suggestion: Put your favorite sweater, opt for a picturesque foliage reader, sip a latch with pumpkin spices and keep an eye on these giant Halloween skeletons.
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