The exact moment each season turns, converted to your own clock — and the season it opens where you are.
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The instant is the same everywhere on Earth; only the season it starts depends on your hemisphere.
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Solstices and equinoxes · 2026
Day and night are close to equal length everywhere on Earth.
Length: 92.7 days
The longest day of the year north of the equator, and the shortest south of it.
Length: 93.7 days
Day and night are close to equal length everywhere on Earth.
Length: 89.9 days
The shortest day of the year north of the equator, and the longest south of it.
Length: 89 days
A solstice or an equinox is not a day — it is an instant, the moment the Sun reaches a particular point along the ecliptic. That instant is the same for the whole planet, so the March equinox of 2027 happens simultaneously in Lisbon, Lima and Auckland. Only two things change with where you stand: the local date on the clock, and the name of the season that begins. The March equinox opens spring north of the equator and autumn south of it, which is why this page asks for your hemisphere before naming anything.
The date is not fixed either, and calendars that print “21 March” every year are simply wrong some of the time. A tropical year lasts about 365.2422 days while a civil year holds 365 or 366, so the instant drifts roughly six hours later each year and a leap day pulls it a full day back. The March equinox therefore wanders between the 19th and the 21st: in 2044 it falls on 19 March, the earliest in centuries.
The four seasons are also not the same length, and that surprises almost everyone. Earth’s orbit is an ellipse, and the planet moves fastest when it is closest to the Sun — around 3 January. So the stretch from the December solstice to the March equinox is the shortest of the year at roughly 89 days, while June to September runs about 93.6 days. Four seasons of 91.3 days each would require a circular orbit, which Earth does not have.
Equinox and solstice are opposite kinds of moment. At an equinox the Sun stands over the equator and day and night come out close to equal everywhere on Earth. At a solstice it reaches its farthest point north or south, giving one hemisphere its longest day of the year and the other its shortest. That is the whole distinction, and it is why there are exactly two of each.
No. It falls between 19 and 21 March, depending on the year and on your time zone. The instant shifts about six hours later each year and jumps back a day at each leap year, so the date cycles. In 2044 the March equinox lands on the 19th.
At an equinox the Sun crosses the celestial equator and day and night are close to equal length everywhere on Earth. At a solstice the Sun reaches its farthest point north or south, producing the longest day of the year in one hemisphere and the shortest in the other. There are two of each per year.
The instant is the same worldwide, but the season is not. The March equinox opens spring in the northern hemisphere and autumn in the southern one, and the September equinox does the reverse. Choosing your hemisphere above changes the names, never the times.
Because Earth’s orbit is elliptical and the planet moves faster near perihelion, in early January. The interval from the December solstice to the March equinox is the shortest, around 89 days, while June to September is the longest at about 93.6 days.
Nearly, but not exactly. Sunrise is counted from the moment the upper edge of the Sun appears, and the atmosphere refracts its image above the horizon before it is geometrically there — both effects add a few minutes of daylight. The day of exactly twelve hours, the equilux, falls a few days before or after the equinox depending on your latitude.
Within about a minute. They come from chapter 27 of Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms — the mean instant from the tabulated polynomials, corrected by twenty-four periodic terms for planetary and lunar perturbations, then converted from Dynamical Time to UTC.
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