March Equinox
20 March 2026 · movable holiday — Day and night shake hands. Happy spring, stargazer!
The March equinox occurs when the Sun crosses the celestial equator (the imaginary line projecting Earth's equator onto the sky) heading north. It falls on 20 or 21 March (in the Americas' time zones occasionally on the 19th), and the exact time shifts from year to year. On this day, day and night are nearly equal everywhere on Earth. The word equinox means equal night, though in practice daylight lasts slightly longer, because the atmosphere bends sunlight and lets us see the Sun while it is still geometrically below the horizon, and sunrise and sunset are counted from the Sun's upper edge rather than its centre. In the Northern Hemisphere astronomical spring begins, while in the Southern Hemisphere autumn does. Many cultures have marked the moment since ancient times: Nowruz, the Persian New Year, is celebrated at the March equinox, and in Mexico crowds gather at the pyramid of Chichen Itza to greet the Sun. Sunrise and sunset fall almost exactly due east and west, which makes it a lovely day to watch the sky.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver figure of a balance scale made of bright points and thin lines, like a constellation drifting across the night sky
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