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September 22nd Marks The Autumn Equinox

By Kim Glovas

PHILADELPHIA (CBS)--Today, September 22nd, marks the end of summer and the start of the Autumn or September Equinox.

This is the day of the year when the sun passes directly over the Equator, that's according to Villanova Astronomy and Astrophysics professor Ed Guinan.

Guinan says there will be twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night.

He explains that different cultures mark the day in different ways, for example, the Chinese.

He says, "They have what is called Mid-Autumn festival or Moon Festival, and it's sort of to celebrate the summer's harvest and things like that and they make these things called Moon cakes. I remember eating one of these, it's filled with lotuses and they have sesame seeds and duck eggs. It tastes pretty good."

The Pagans celebrated this as the time of nature in balance, and a time for finishing up unfinished projects and planting the seeds of new enterprise

Guinan says it's also a time when the Sun rises here at 7 a.m. and is due east, and the Sun will set directly west at 7 p.m.

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