Last week we waved goodbye to winter, as the Vernal Equinox marked the official start of spring .
As the name suggests, during the equinox, the amount of daylight and darkness is nearly equal at all latitudes.
This only happens twice a year, when the Earth ’s axis is tilted neither towards nor away from the sun, and instead, is directly over the equator.
While this can be difficult to picture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has snapped a stunning photo, showing the equinox in action.
Spring Equinox 2019: 7 facts about the first day of Spring
The photo was captured on March 20 at 08:00 ET, and shows Earth perfectly balance in day and night.
The National Weather Service explained: “The ‘nearly’ equal hours of day and night is due to refraction of sunlight, or a bending of the light's rays that causes the sun to appear above the horizon when the actual position of the sun is below the horizon.”
The next equinox will take place on 23 September, taking us from summer into autumn.
