Showing posts with label seasons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seasons. Show all posts

September 23 - Autumn Begins with the Equinox in Eastern Asia

                           Posted on September 23, 2021


This post is an updated version of my post published on September 23, 2010:





Equinox means “equal night,” and this is the date when day and night are equal lengths. (Depending on where you live, the day and night aren't quite equal.) In the Northern Hemisphere, fall begins on the September Equinox, and in the Southern Hemisphere, spring begins on that day.



This year the Equinox occurs at 19:21 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) - on September 22! (That translates to 7:21 p.m. UTC.) Coordinated Universal Time is a time standard that can be referred to worldwide. It is based on International Atomic Time and is roughly the same time as Greenwich Mean Time, which is the time kept at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England.


Notice: today is September 23. And I just said that this year the September Equinox is September 22. What - what - what?


Well, any part of the world that has a time zone far enough ahead of UTC will have its Equinox early in the morning on the 23rd instead of in the afternoon or evening of the 22nd. So we say that the September Equinox occurs a day later in such locations as Eastern Russia, Japan, Korea, etc.


Fall falls...


Again speaking from the perspective of the Northern Hemisphere, the days have been getting shorter, and the nights longer, ever since the first day of summer. The days will continue to get shorter and shorter until mid-December. Today is the mid-point in the process.


The shorter days are the main reason that winter is colder than summer. This seasonal change is caused by the Earth's tilt.






Balance an egg on its end...

 

...or not...


Even though it has been disproved over and over (and over!), there persists a myth that you can balance an egg on its end only during an equinox, when everything is balanced and equal.


Some people might say that it's impossible to balance an egg - but it's not. It's really hard to do it—it takes a lot of practice—and it takes a lot of patience—AND you have to have the right egg, one that has a yolk centered in its shell—but you most definitely can balance an egg on its end.


However, with the right egg, with all that practice and patience, you can stand an egg on its end any day of the year! The idea that it is only possible on an equinox is pure myth! 






Also on this date:












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July 3 - “Dog Days” Begin

Posted on July 3, 2021


This is an update of my post published on July 3, 2010:



The hottest days of the summer are sometimes called the Dog Days. In the Northern Hemisphere, these days are often during July and August, and The Old Farmer's Almanac (which has been published every year continuously since 1792) lists today as the start date.



(The days that are actually the hottest depends, of course, on the year and the location. In my corner of the world, the hottest days usually fall in August and September and parts of October!)

Why are the hottest days called “dog days”? The ancients watched the heavens carefully for time-keeping and weather-prediction purposes.

They noticed that Sirius, which is the brightest star in the sky other than the Sun, rose just before or at the same time as sunrise during July and August.


The Greeks and Romans blamed Sirius for the extra heat. Since Sirius is the largest star in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog), the Romans called Sirius the Dog Star, and dubbed the days supposedly affected by this star the Dog Days.


According to Brady's Clavis Calendarium (1813), the Dog Days were thought of as a time of evil “when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies.” The Romans sacrificed a brown dog at the beginning of the Dog Days in an effort to appease the anger of the Dog Star and minimize the heat and troubles.

Of course, we know today that Sirius is really a binary (two-star) system more than 8 light years - which is something like 47,000,000,000,000 miles away - and we also know that Sirius doesn't affect Earth temperatures at all.

Do you know the actual reason that summers are hotter than winters?

Because the Earth is tilted on its axis, each hemisphere faces the Sun more directly during the summer. This means that, in the summer, the days are longer, and also the Sun's rays hit the Earth more squarely—and both factors make the temperatures go up.

This diagram is specific to the Northern Hemisphere.
But the situation in the Southern Hemisphere is the same -
but with opposite months markings - because So. Hemi.
folks get summer's direct rays in December and winter's
indirect rays in June!

Here and here are season simulators that you can use to see the angle of the Sun's rays during different seasons and at different places. Can you see why people at the North and South pole sometimes have 24-hour days or 24-hour nights?

Some Summer Fun

Here are some summer coloring pages.

Here are some yum-sounding summer-oriented recipes.

 




Here are some fun-sounding summertime activity ideas.

 





 

 

Also on this date:

 


















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