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First Day of Fall 2010: Autumnal Equinox & Daylight Savings Time

by Jordan Yerman | September 20, 2010 at 08:07 am

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Autumnal Equinox 2010

The Autumnal Equinox takes place at 8:09pm PDT/11:09pm EDT on September 22, 2010 (3:09am GMT on September 23).

Super Harvest Moon 2010

This marks the first day of Fall. If you're wondering what an Equinox is, it's when the earth is positioned upright on its axis, neither toward or away from the Sun. The Sun then hits the Earth on the same plane as the Equator. On Equinox days, the Sun spends an equal amount of time above and below the horizon.

When Does Daylight Savings Time 2010 End?

Daylight Savings Time ends November 7 in the USA and Canada at 2am. You get to "fall back" and get an extra hour of sleep.

Daylight Savings Time 2010 Around the World

The UK and Ireland will end Daylight Savings time 2010 on October 24. The rest of Europe will end Daylight Savings Time on October 31.

In Australia, Daylight Savings Time begins on October 3, except for Queensland, WA, and NT, which do not observe Daylight Savings Time. New Zealand gets the jump on its Antipodean neighbor, beginning DST on September 26.

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JayAreJay (not verified)

at 04:23 on September 21st, 2010

Typical bad science; I wish reporters would research their subjects. The Sun does not hit the Earth "on the same plane as the Equator". The axial angle remains at 23.4 degrees, however the tilt is fixed celestially, not in relation to the Sun. Therefore, the "apparent" angle toward or away from the sun goes through a rotation relative to the Sun over the course of the year. The Equinox is when the tilt is tangental to the orbital path, with neither pole tipped toward the Sun. However, the equator still remains tilted.

Tim Keenan (not verified)

at 12:52 on September 21st, 2010

Thank you, Jay--Took the words right out of my mouth. There is a unique point in space/time at which the apparent position of the sun, to an observer on the ground, is directly over the equator at noon. This happens twice a year. That time is referred to as an equinox. Clearly it follows that there is really only one meridian of longitude at which day and night are truly of equal length at any given equinox. It is, however, true that everywhere north of the equator the night BEFORE the autumn equinox is shorter than the following day, and the night AFTER is longer than the preceding day (and vice versa for locations south of the equator).Also, it isn't Daylight "Savings" Time, it is Daylight Saving Time. And to be totally syntactically unambiguous, it ought to be Daylight-saving Time.