Tuesday’s Vernal equinox the earliest anyone alive has ever seen…
This year’s vernal equinox will occur earlier than anyone alive has ever seen
During the earth’s orbit around the sun there are two equinoxes. One in March and one in September, marking the changing of astronomical seasons.
Spring officially begins Tuesday, March 19, at 10:06 PM in Chicago. That’s 43 minutes earlier than on March 19, 2020, when the equinox occurred at 10:49 PM.
That date and time marked the earliest spring had arrived since 1896.
During the precise time of the equinox, all of the earth will experience nearly equal daytime and nighttime. So, why is it happening so early this year?
The simple answer: Leap years.
According to NASA, it takes the Earth around 365.25 days to orbit the sun, but that time can vary annually. To compensate for these variations, adjustments are made to the calendar in the form of leap years, which occur every four years, usually. Additional conditions are observed to keep the calendar synced with the solar year.
Leap years must be evenly divisible by four, but if it’s evenly divisible by 100, it skips a leap year. 1700, 1800 and 1900 did not have a February 29. The year 2000 had 366 days, because there’s a third exception to the leap year rules. If the year is evenly divisible by 400, it’s a leap year. Moving forward, each leap year from now on (2028, 2032, etc.) will have a new record earliest spring, until the next reset occurs in 2400.
While the equinox marks the points where day and night are of approximately equal length, the solstice marks the longest and shortest days of the year.
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