Spring has come in the Northern Hemisphere in the midst of snow still firmly gripping many areas of the country. Spring equinox, or the yearly heavenly alignment happening between Earth and the sun, signaled this move in seasons and the coming of spring. The experience happened on March 20, Monday, at 6:28 a.m. Eastern time.
Spring equinox comes twice in a year, Earth reaches a point in its yearly trip around the sun when its Northern and Southern hemisphere gets a similar amount of sunlight, called equinox or "same night" in Latin. The Northern Hemisphere's spring equinox also brings the beginning of fall in the Southern Hemisphere.
Its equinox of autumn, then again, happens in September and signaled the coming of spring equinox of the equator. Daylight is almost unequally distributed across Earth because of the way the planet revolves the sun. One of the Northern and Southern sides of the equator is accepting light longer during a 24-hour time frame.
"During two extraordinary events twice per year, the tilt is really opposite or perpendicular to the sun, which implies that Earth is equally enlightened in the Northern and Southern sides of the equator called spring equinox," clarified C. Alex Young of Heliophysics Science at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to Live Science.
It stays uncertain at what exact point ancient civilizations were first made aware of this event. People, however, have been building structures for a very long time just to watch the sun and sky are changing positions relative to the seasons.
"The path of the total eclipse crosses the U.S. across the nation, so scientists will have the capacity to take ground-based observations for over an hour to compliment the abundance of information given by NASA satellites," NASA said in an announcement. The space agency keeps on watching the sun even without the expected eclipse. Its Heliophysics System Observatory (HSO), involving 23 shuttle and 20 missions, take care with this spring equinox mission.
