[ad_1]
If you felt that autumn had already settled in the past two weeks, you would have been partially correct.
According to weather standards and calendars, we have already welcomed the summer weather on September 1st.
But an astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich told Express.co.uk that there was another way to determine the changing seasons.
According to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, the good news is that we still have about four days of summer left.
When is the equinox of autumn this year?
This year, autumn officially takes over from the summer, early in the morning of September 23, just before 3 am in the UK.
The equinox, sometimes called the vernal equinox, will officially mark the beginning of the astronomical autumn.
Each year, the equinox falls on one of the three days towards the end of September.
Tom Kerss, astronomer at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, told Express.co.uk: "Every year, the autumnal equinox is between 22 and 24 September, but the date and time vary because Earth's orbit lasts 365.25 days and our calendar is rounded. until 365 – with an extra day of correction every four years.
What is the autumn equinox?
According to Kerss, the autumnal equinox occurs when the sun passes over the Earth's equator.
This only happens twice a year – once during the spring equinox and once during the autumn equinox.
The astronomer said, "This year's autumnal or spring equinox falls on the morning of September 23rd.
"At 15:50 GMT (2:54 BST), the Earth will reach a point in its orbit where the axis of its rotation – the line connecting the poles – does not point preferentially towards or away from the Sun.
"At this point, no hemisphere is leaning toward the sun, but after the 23rd, the northern hemisphere will start moving away from the sun, resulting in ever longer nights and shorter days.
"Astronomers consider this moment as the beginning of autumn in the northern hemisphere, and therefore the beginning of spring in the southern hemisphere."
What is the difference between an equinox and a solstice?
Each year there are two equinoxes and two solstices, each linked to one of the four seasons.
These are the summer solstice, the winter solstice, the spring equinox and the autumnal equinox.
Mr. Kerss explained: "The next landmark in Earth's orbit will be this year on December 21, a date known in the northern hemisphere as the winter solstice.
"The solstices mark the beginning of the summer and winter and occur when one of the Earth's poles is as close as possible to the Sun and the other as far away as possible.
"Therefore, we have two solstices and two equinoxes each year, separated by about three months.
"They signal the beginning of the astronomical seasons, although our weather sense of the beginning of the seasons varies with climate and weather."
Source link
