The tracking errors at
vernal equinox and autumnal equinox are much smaller than that at winter solstice.
Which hemisphere will experience its
vernal equinox on March 20?--
Hundreds of thousands soaked up the sun as the fine weather held across most of the country following the
Vernal Equinox on Friday - officially the first day of spring.
Because its timing depended on both the Moon's phases and the
vernal equinox, ecclesiastical authorities had to seek some way of reconciling lunar and solar calendars.
Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the first Sunday following the first full moon on or after the
vernal equinox.
But we're more than halfway to the
vernal equinox. The nutria emerged from its den to have a look around because it felt the stirrings of a fresh season about to dawn.
The ecliptic's intersection with the blue celestial equator on this month's chart marks one of the Sun's annual milestones: the
vernal equinox. Located among the stars of Pisces, the Fishes, it's where the Sun will be next year on March 20th, when spring begins in the Northern Hemisphere.
Bob Barr (R-Ga.) wrote to top military commanders at a base in Texas arguing that soldiers should not have been permitted to celebrate the
vernal equinox. Such celebration, Barr wrote, "sets a dangerous precedent that could easily result in the practice of all sorts of bizarre practices being supported by military under the rubric of 'religion.'"
An anonymous treatise 'De Pascha Computus' argued for March 28, a bold synthesis of the
vernal equinox, the Creation, and Malachai's prophecy (4.2) of the "Sun of Righteousness".
At times, even her less historically grounded guesswork seems ingenious, as, for example, when she suggests that astronomer Benjamin Banneker's dream concerning the
Vernal Equinox (that day in the year when light and darkness are equal) might reflect an effort to come to terms with his own mixed racial heritage in a society willing to acknowledge only his African ancestry.
At the moment of the
vernal equinox, it is possible to stand an egg on end and have it balance perfectly.