What and when is the 2026 spring equinox?

The Earth’s axis is tilted by 23.5 degrees and that tilt in relation to the Sun changes on its orbit around the Sun.

At the equinox the Earth’s reaches a point when the tilt is neither towards nor away from the Sun and we have equal sunlight reaching the northern and southern hemisphere.

The word “equinox” comes from Latin, where equi means “equal” and nox means “night”.

On this day it would be easy to assume that day and night would be of equal length of 12 hours each. However, that is not entirely correct.

In the UK, 12 hours of daylight and night time comes a few days before the equinox – the equilux.