Depending on where you are, theSpring equinox 2023 falls today, or tomorrow, but what does this date really mean? As for the solstices, it’s easy to define them and give them a meaning, in fact they represent the longest day or night of the year depending on your hemisphere.
On the other hand, the definition of the equinoxes is that the equator points directly at the Sun, and this has much less relevance to people living elsewhere, leading to common definitions that seem universal, but actually contain many errors and inaccuracies. .
Even the name equinox is imprecise, as it derives from the Latin “equal night”, but does the equinox therefore make the length of day and night equal?
This leads one to think that the equinoxes – and also the vernal equinox of 2023 – occur when there is an equal amount of day and night all over the world, but one of the reasons this definition is wrong, is obvious to anyone stop and think about it (hint: the poles), but as our colleagues from point out Space.comthere are also problems with the definition that require more knowledge to notice.
Spring equinox 2023: how to explain it?
The first problem with the name is that it assumes everything that isn’t day is night, ignoring twilight. Sunlight is scattered by particles in the upper atmosphere, which can be illuminated long before the Sun rises and after it sets, with the amount of extra light varying according to location – twilight is much shorter in the tropics than in the tropics. temperate regions – even if you ignore the clouds. However, if you want a full 12 hours at night, you have to wait long before winter.
Even if your definition of night includes twilight, it still won’t equal the amount of daylight at the 2023 vernal equinox because the Sun is not a point source, in fact before the midpoint of our local star rises and after that it has set, there is still a powerful light source covering up to a quarter degree of the sky shining down on us all.
Once again, the Sun sets much more slowly at high latitudesso no universal number covers how much extra time we get where part of the Sun is above the horizon, however the minimum figure -at the equator at the time of the equinox– is two minutes, but at the poles there are well over 24 hours in which only part of the Sun is visible.
Altitude can also complicate matters, with mountain peaks staying lit a little longer than the lowlands, further extending the day.
Even if you’re in a small boat on the ocean, the Earth has one more trick to play to give you precious moments of light, that’s because the atmosphere refracts light as well as scatters it, bending it so that the Sun appears just above the sun. horizon when it’s actually slightly below, in fact the day when the Sun is visible for exactly 12 hours is called equilux and varies according to latitude.
But then, when is the spring equinox of 2023? There are many tools online to help you discover the combined size of these effects where you live, and these will show you how much extra daylight you get where you live over the 12 hours. To use tools like this accurately, you also need to note what day the equinox falls on where you live.
Since the year isn’t exactly 365 days long, the timing of the equinoxes and solstices shift slightly and this year falls at 21:24 UTC on March 20 for Europe and the United Stateswhile instead the spring equinox of 2023 will fall on March 21 for Australia, Asia and Africa.
When it comes to how much bonus twilight provides, however, you need to decide which twilight interests you, not least because between astronomical, nautical, and civil twilights, they all have different definitions and lengths.
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