What is the first day of spring

The amount of sunlight we get during the day has no power over the gravitational pull of the Earth or our abilities to balance things upon it. During the winter and summer solstices, crowds flock to Stonehenge in the United Kingdom.

During the solstices, the sun either rises or sets in line with the layout of the 5,year-old monument. And while some visit Stonehenge for the spring equinox too, the real place to be is in Mexico. Built by the Mayans around 1, years ago, the pyramid is designed to cast a shadow on the equinox outlining the body of Kukulkan , a feathered snake god.

A serpent-head statue is located at the bottom of the pyramid, and as the sun sets on the day of the equinox, the sunlight and shadow show the body of the serpent joining with the head. All the planets in the solar system rotate on a tilted axis and therefore have seasons. Some of these tilts are minor like Mercury, which is tilted at 2. But others are more like the Earth tilted at Below, see a beautiful composite image of Saturn on its equinox captured by the Cassini spacecraft RIP in The gas giant is tilted 27 degrees relative to the sun, and equinoxes on the planet are less frequent than on Earth.

Saturn only sees an equinox about once every 15 years because it takes Saturn 29 years to complete one orbit around the sun. In , NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe , a spacecraft that will come within 4 million miles of the surface of the sun much closer than any spacecraft has been before. Still, even several million miles away, the probe will have to withstand temperatures of 2, degrees Fahrenheit.

Brad Plumer wrote for Vox about what happens when the sun erupts and sends space weather our way to wreak havoc on Earth. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.

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Ad Choices. To officially become a newsletter subscriber, be sure to confirm your subscription by responding to the email we send you. On the equinoxes, the Sun shines directly on the equator and the length of day and night is nearly equal. The March Vernal Equinox is when the Sun crosses the celestial equator, moving from south to north. This date is considered to be the first day of spring. Here's a chart that shows what day of the week and the day the first day of spring falls on in the Eastern Daylight Savings Time of the Northern Hemisphere from - The first day of spring may be different in your time zone.

Email this page to a friend. We respect your privacy! Dandelion will be in bloom within a few weeks. Marcus Schneck photo. Spring will arrive at a. Saturday, March 20, which is squarely in the middle of the range of days on which it can fall, March 19, 20 or