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The solstices, together with the equinoxes, are connected with the seasons. In some languages they are considered to start or separate the seasons; in others they are considered to be centre points (in England , in the Northern Hemisphere, for example, the period around the northern solstice is known as midsummer).
Systematically observing the sunrise, people discovered that it occurs between two extreme locations at the horizon and eventually noted the midpoint between the two. Later it was realized that this happens on a day when the duration of the day and the night are practically equal and the word "equinox" comes from Latin aequus, meaning "equal", and nox, meaning "night".
In its apparent motion on the day of an equinox, the Sun's disk crosses the Earth's horizon directly to the east at sunrise; and again, some 12 hours later, directly to the west at sunset. The March equinox, like all equinoxes, is characterized by having an almost exactly equal amount of daylight and night across most latitudes on Earth. [14]
The summer solstice is the day with the longest period of daylight and shortest night of the year in that hemisphere, when the sun is at its highest position in the sky. At either pole there is continuous daylight at the time of its summer solstice. The opposite event is the winter solstice. The summer solstice occurs during the hemisphere's ...
The September equinox (or southward equinox) is the moment when the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator, heading southward. Because of differences between the calendar year and the tropical year, the September equinox may occur from September 21 to 24. At the equinox, the Sun as viewed from the equator rises due east and sets due west ...
The seasons with the transition points of the June solstice, September equinox, December solstice, and March equinox. The winter solstice, also called the hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern).
The December-solstice solar year is the solar year based on the December solstice. It is thus the length of time between adjacent December solstices. The length of the December-solstice year has been relatively stable between 6000 BC and AD 2000, in the range of 49 minutes 30 seconds to 50 minutes in excess of 365 days 5 hours.
The Wheel of the Year in the Northern Hemisphere.Some Pagans in the Southern Hemisphere advance these dates six months to coincide with their own seasons.. The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by a range of modern pagans, marking the year's chief solar events (solstices and equinoxes) and the midpoints between them.