{"id":776134,"date":"2023-12-25T13:01:57","date_gmt":"2023-12-25T18:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=776134"},"modified":"2023-12-25T13:01:57","modified_gmt":"2023-12-25T18:01:57","slug":"solstices-and-equinoxes-in-a-video-from-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=776134","title":{"rendered":"Solstices and equinoxes in a video from space"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Seeing Equinoxes and Solstices from Space\" width=\"1110\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FmCJqykN2J0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Solstices and equinoxes<\/h3>\n<p>The December solstice (winter for the Northern Hemisphere, summer for the Southern Hemisphere) will take place at 3:27 UTC on December 22 (9:27 p.m. CST December 21).<\/p>\n<p>Later, in 2024, the March equinox (start of autumn for the Northern Hemisphere, spring for the Southern Hemisphere) takes place at 3:07 UTC, March 20 (10:07 p.m. CDT on March 19).<\/p>\n<p>As an illustration solstice marks the sun\u2019s southernmost and northernmost points in our sky. An equinox, meanwhile, marks when the sun crosses over the Earth\u2019s equator.<\/p>\n<p>The 2024 lunar calendars are here! Best Christmas gifts in the universe! Check \u2019em out here.<\/p>\n<h3>Summer and winter<\/h3>\n<p>In addition, the fact that Earth\u2019s Northern and Southern Hemispheres have their summers and winters at opposite times of year provides a clue to the reason for Earth\u2019s seasons. That reason is Earth\u2019s 23 1\/2-degree tilt on its axis. It\u2019s natural, of course, to think our world\u2019s seasons result from our changing distance from the sun. But we\u2019re closer to the sun in northern winter, and farther from the sun in northern summer. So, it\u2019s not Earth\u2019s distance from the sun that causes the seasons to change. Instead, on our tilted world, the angle of sunlight striking your location shifts in a yearly cycle, as we travel around the sun.<\/p>\n<p>The photos and video on this page \u2013 from NASA \u2013 show Earth\u2019s solstices and equinoxes from space. They can help you visualize why our seasons unfold as they do, continuously, throughout each year.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_105266\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-105266\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-105266\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Earth\u2019s seasons result from our planet\u2019s tilt on its axis with respect to our orbit around the sun. Here are images of the different solstices and equinoxes from space. Upper left: northern winter solstice. Lower left: northern summer solstice. Upper right: northern spring equinox. Lower right: northern autumnal equinox. Images from EUMETSAT\u2018s Meteosat-9 weather satellite, via the archives of NASA Earth Observatory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>Viewing the solstices and equinoxes from space<\/h3>\n<p>EUMETSAT\u2018s Meteosat-9 (a weather satellite) captured the four views above of Earth from geosynchronous orbit in 2010 and 2011. A satellite in geosynchronous orbit stays over the same point on Earth all the time. And the images above show how sunlight fell on the Earth on December 21, 2010 (upper left), March 20, 2011 (upper right), June 21, 2011 (lower left), and September 20, 2011 (lower right). Also, each image was taken at 6:12 a.m. local time.<\/p>\n<p>Around 6 a.m. local time each day, the sun, Earth, and any geosynchronous satellite form a right angle. Thus, affording a straight-down view of Earth\u2019s <em>terminator line<\/em>, that is, the line between our world\u2019s day and night sides. The shape of this line between night and day varies with the seasons. And as a result, causes different lengths of days and differing amounts of warming sunshine.<\/p>\n<p>However, while the line is actually a curve because the Earth is round, satellite images show it in two dimensions only.<\/p>\n<h3>The terminator<\/h3>\n<p>On March 21 and September 23, the terminator is a straight north-south line, and the sun sits directly above the equator. Then, on December 21, the sun resides directly over the Tropic of Capricorn when viewed from the ground, and sunlight spreads over more of the Southern Hemisphere. Next, on June 21, the sun sits above the Tropic of Cancer, spreading more sunlight in the north.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_421628\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-421628\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/upl\/2022\/12\/Earth-seasons-chart-800x469.png\" alt=\"Diagram of Earth in orbit showing tilt of axis in different seasons.\" width=\"800\" height=\"469\" class=\"size-large wp-image-421628\"\/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-421628\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Illustration showing the Earth\u2019s orbit around the sun during the year with the tilt of Earth\u2019s axis and position of the Earth during each season. Image via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Bottom line: A video from NASA shows how sunlight falls on Earth\u2019s surface during the solstices and equinoxes, as seen by the weather satellite Meteosat-9 in 2010 and 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoying EarthSky? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"cp-load-after-post\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"post-author\">\n<h4>Editors of EarthSky<\/h4>\n<p>                    View Articles\n                  <\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"post-tags\">\n<h6 data-udy-fe=\"text_7c58270d\">About the Author:<\/h6>\n<p>The EarthSky team has a blast bringing you daily updates on your cosmos and world.  We love your photos and welcome your news tips.  Earth, Space, Sun, Human, Tonight. Since 1994.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/space\/watching-solstices-and-equinoxes-from-space\/?rand=772280\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Solstices and equinoxes The December solstice (winter for the Northern Hemisphere, summer for the Southern Hemisphere) will take place at 3:27 UTC on December 22 (9:27 p.m. CST December 21).&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":776135,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-776134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth-sky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=776134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/776135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=776134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=776134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=776134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}