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.
Cancer the Crab is one of the 12 constellations of the zodiac. Learn how to find it in your sky, plus learn about its star cluster, mythology and more.
The Beehive cluster is an open star cluster that lies near the center of the constellation Cancer the Crab. It goes by many names, including Praesepe and M44.
Alphard is the "heart" and brightest star in the constellation Hydra the Water Snake, and it represents a welcome sign of spring for the Northern Hemisphere.
Sirius is the brightest star in Earth's sky because of how close it is to us. It's so bright you might see glints of different colors flashing from it.
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.
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