Nights to start getting longer

EARLY tomorrow morning the autumn 2010 equinox will pass.

The bi-annual event marks the point when the tilt of the earth’s axis is neither towards nor away from the sun.

The equinox happens at a specific point in time, and it will hit Australia about 5.30am DST on Sunday.

The equinox occurs in March and September each year, generally on the 20th of both those months.

Because on the day of the equinox, the sun spends roughly the same period of time above and below the horizon, night and day are about the same length.

But because sunlight still shines when the sun is below the horizon, the amount of sunlight and darkness is not equal.

It is the opposite of the solstice, when the earth’s axis is most inclined towards or away from the sun.

Neither event has any specific effect on the weather, although some communications satellites experience outages.