Goodbye summer, hello autumn! Days are now shorter than nights... until March next year
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By PATRICK HARRINGTON, UK NEWS REPORTER
Published: | Updated:
Wednesday marked the autumn equinox - one of just two dates in the year when night and day are split evenly.
But that means from here on we will have longer nights than days - until the spring equinox in March next year.
The sun put on a stunning display to mark the occasion, bathing the landscape in a magnificent orange light in the morning.
A small number of people who gathered at Glastonbury Tor for sunset were treated to marmalade skies striped with clouds.
Besides the nights growing longer than the days, the equinox also marks the beginning of autumn - and an end to summer.
Along with the summer and winter solstices, the equinoxes have been marked and celebrated around the world for centuries.
Japan marks public holidays during the equinoxes. At the Mayan site Chichen Itza in Mexico, people gather during the equinox to watch the sun create a shadow pattern that resembles a serpent descending a pyramid called El Castillo.
Wednesday marked the autumn equinox, when the day was the same length as the night
A small number of people gathered at Glastonbury Tor to mark the occasion, and were met with a magnificent sunrise
With the equinox passed, the nights will now be longer than the days until the spring equinox next year
Hundreds of people gathered at Stonehenge in Wiltshire on Wednesday morning for the Autumn Equinox sunrise
The shape of the Earth's orbit means the autumn and spring equinoxes are the two days when the sun is directly overhead at the equator at noon.
As the Earth travels around the sun, it does so at an angle, making the sun's warmth and light fall unequally on the northern and southern halves of the planet for most of the year.
During the equinox, the Earth's tilt is neither toward nor away from the sun, so both the northern and southern hemispheres get an equal amount of sunlight.
The sun rises almost exactly due east, and it sets almost exactly due west.
The word equinox comes from two Latin words meaning equal and night. That's because on the equinox, day and night last almost the same amount of time - though one may get a few extra minutes, depending on where you are on the planet.
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