There are many cycles in the heavens. We're coming up to a noticeable cycle - the 2nd eclipse season this year - right now. It starts with a solar eclipse.
Day and night are mostly equal on the equinox. There's a bit more daylight because the sun is a disk, not a point, and Earth’s atmosphere refracts sunlight.
The year's fastest sunsets are at the equinoxes, and the slowest are at the solstices. We're talking about how long it takes the sun to sink below the horizon.
The Andromeda galaxy is the closest big galaxy to our Milky Way. At 2.5 million light-years, it's the most distant thing you can see with the eye alone.
Equinox shadows are unique. On this day - and this day only - the tip of an upright stick's shadow follows a straight path, west to east, all day long.
Bruce McClure served as lead writer for EarthSky's popular Tonight pages from 2004 to 2021, when he opted for a much-deserved retirement. He's a sundial aficionado, whose love for the heavens has taken him to Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and sailing in the North Atlantic, where he earned his celestial navigation certificate through the School of Ocean Sailing and Navigation. He also wrote and hosted public astronomy programs and planetarium programs in and around his home in upstate New York.