The European Space Agency (ESA) on Saturday released a satellite picture of day and night split in half on Earth’s surface. The image posted on X, formerly Twitter, shows the crossing of the Sun in the celestial equator in the sky and bringing autumn to the Northern Hemisphere. Sharing the picture, the space agency wrote, “Winter is coming. Day and night are split in half today, as the Sun crossed the celestial equator in the sky at 07:50 BST/08:50 CEST marking the autumn equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. This #Meteosat image was taken at 09:00 BST/10:00 CEST this morning.”

Winter is coming

Day and night are split in half today, as the Sun crossed the celestial equator in the sky at 07:50 BST/08:50 CEST marking the autumn equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.

This #Meteosat image was taken at 09:00 BST/10:00 CEST this morning (pic: EUMETSAT) pic.twitter.com/t7oUI36ai4

— ESA (@esa) September 23, 2023

Since being shared, the post has amassed a lot of reactions from social media users.

“This is an interesting post !” said a user.

“Incredible,” said another person.

“The autumn equinox has begun in the Northern Hemisphere. Shown here, a grand image of Earth from Meteosat in space with Africa, Europe, and the Middle East positioned to the front,” commented another user.

A person added, “Amazing; I had no idea the countries of the world were drawn onto the Earth like that.”

As per Space.com, Autumn began astronomically in the Northern Hemisphere and spring started in the Southern Hemisphere. “The sun is currently migrating south, having spent the previous six months shining directly on the northern half of our planet. So, at the official start time of autumn, the sun would appear directly overhead from a ship in the Laccadive Sea, positioned on the equator, 170 miles (275 kilometres) northeast of Addu City in the Maldives,” the website said. 

The Earth’s axis is tilted either towards or away from the sun for the majority of the year. It follows that the planet’s northern and southern portions receive different amounts of warmth and light from the sun. The Earth’s axis and orbit align at the equinox, distributing sunlight equally to both hemispheres.

Two Latin words that signify equal and night make up the word equinox. This is due to the fact that on the equinox, day and night are almost equal in length. However, depending on where you are on the planet, one may get a few some extra minutes.

Aditya L1 onboard the PSLV-C57 the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on September 1, 2023 on the eve of its launch. Photo: X/@ISRO via PTI

The European Space Agency (ESA) which had provided crucial support to ISRO to monitor the Chandrayaan-3’s health, will also be supporting Aditya-L1, providing deep space communication services to the mission.

“ESA’s global network of deep space tracking stations and use of internationally recognised technical standards allows us to help our partners track, command and receive data from their spacecraft almost anywhere in the solar system,” said Ramesh Chellathurai, ESA service manager, and an ESA cross-support liaison officer for ISRO.

Mr. Chellathurai added that for the Aditya-L1 mission, ESA is providing support from all three of its 35-metre deep space antennas over Australia, Spain and Argentina, as well as support from the Kourou station in French Guiana and coordinated support from the Goonhilly Earth Station in the UK.

Ground services

ESA said that it was the main provider of ground station services for Aditya-L1. ESA stations will support the mission from beginning to end: from the critical ‘Launch and Early Orbit Phase’, throughout the journey to L1, and then to send commands to and receive science data from Aditya-L1 for multiple hours per day over the next two years of routine operations.

The space agency added that from April to December 2022, ESA and ISRO teams had worked together intensively to evaluate ISRO’s strategy for operating the Aditya-L1 and challenge their new orbit determination software.

“With its experience flying and even rescuing missions at the Lagrange points, ESA was in the perfect position to help ISRO improve their new orbit determination software and demonstrate that it has the fidelity and accuracy that the organisation needs in order to operate a spacecraft at a Lagrange point for the first time,” said ESA flight dynamics expert Frank Budnik.

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