Technologies

How to Actually See the September Equinox This Weekend

It’s an important annual milestone: autumn equinox north of the equator and spring equinox to the south.

The September equinox arrives on Saturday morning (late Friday PT), signaling a shift in seasons.

The fact that the September and March equinoxes, along with December and June solstices, happen at the same time each year suggests the milestones have something to do with Earth’s year-long journey around the sun. And, of course, they do, but there’s more going on.

On the equinox the sun appears directly over the equator, which means that daylight and nighttime hours are roughly equal around the globe, hence the word equinox.

But if you picture a diagram of the solar system with all the planets in the same plane orbiting the sun endlessly, you might ask why it isn’t equinox every day instead of just two days a year? This is because of a weird quirk of our world, which is that Earth doesn’t rotate on its axis straight up and down; instead the planet is tilted by 23.5 degrees.

This is actually what gives us our seasons. When Earth is at the point in its orbit where the north pole is tilted toward the sun, that’s summer in the northern hemisphere and also the time of year when the sun is higher in the sky. The moment when the sun is highest in the sky in the north is the June solstice. When it’s lowest in the sky in the north and highest in the south, that’s the December solstice.

The equinoxes are the midway points between the two solstices, the moment Earth crosses the point in its orbit when one hemisphere begins to receive more sun than the other. Or, astronomically speaking, the moment one of Earth’s poles transitions to be closer to the sun than the other. This happens next at 11:50 p.m. PT Friday, which will be Saturday morning or afternoon for much of the rest of the world.

How do I see it?

An equinox is really just a milestone along our 365.25-day journey around the sun, but there are a few ways to see it, kind of.

No matter where you are on Earth on equinox day, the sun will rise as close to due east and set as close to due west as it ever will. It’s the one day the sun is a pretty foolproof compass. This makes the equinox a handy day for wayfinding. If you go outside at sunrise Saturday, take note of any landmarks directly in front of the sun as it rises. Now you’ll know with confidence that those landmarks are due east from your location. Same goes for anything in front of the setting sun in the west.

Pay close attention and you’ll notice something else about an equinox sunrise and sunset — they go by more quickly than on any other day of the year. Because the sun is rising due east and setting almost perfectly west, it’s also coming up and going down at the steepest angle of the year. This means it takes fewer seconds for the full disc of the sun to emerge above the horizon and then disappear below it again in the evening.

The actual difference between the fastest sunset and the slowest sunset, which is — you guessed it — on the solstice, is only about 30 seconds at middle latitudes. In other words, an equinox sunrise is faster by about one-sixth compared to a solstice sunrise. Try timing it and marking it on your calendar and then doing the same in three months at the next solstice.

Technologies

Australians Flock to VPNs in the Wake of Online Age-Restriction Laws

App downloads for VPN services increase sharply as websites in Australia go behind age-restriction walls.

A new set of laws in Australia requiring adult websites and app stores to age-restrict content for those under 18, and requiring AI companies to restrict chatbot offerings from displaying certain types of sensitive or adult content to minors, is apparently driving many to download Virtual Private Network apps there.

Major adult sites have closed their virtual doors to those who aren’t age-confirmed in Australia, and these changes follow a nationwide ban on social media use by teenagers and young children that went into effect in December.

According to reports from Reuters, The Guardian and others, in response to the bans, downloads of VPN-related apps, which people can use to circumvent location-based restrictions, are sharply on the rise. According to Reuters, three of the 15 most downloaded free iPhone apps in the country were VPN-related as the new laws went into effect on Monday.

Lawmakers in some regions, including the US, are well aware that people use VPNs in this way. In states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, laws are being proposed to limit or outright ban VPN use. Wisconsin’s proposed law would require adult sites to block VPN traffic, while Michigan’s proposal would ban VPN use entirely in the state.

There is also a proposal in England under consideration to ban VPN use by minors. That proposal is currently under review.

Technologies

Here’s How to Track the Artemis II Mission in Real Time With NASA’s New Tool

The tool will let you track NASA’s modern lunar program during its 10-day flight around the moon and back again.

More than half a century after astronauts last left footprints on the lunar surface, humanity is preparing to return to the moon. The excitement surrounding NASA’s Apollo program once captivated the world, and now NASA hopes to rekindle that same sense of wonder with its modern lunar effort, the Artemis program.

NASA’s Artemis II launch is scheduled for the first week of April. It’ll be the first human mission to the moon since 1972, and it should be quite the achievement for the Artemis program. Now, NASA has released a new tool that lets the public track Artemis II in real time.

The Artemis program is NASA’s long-term effort to return humans to the moon and establish a sustained presence there for the first time since the Apollo program. The program aims to land astronauts near the lunar south pole, develop new technologies for long-term exploration and use the moon as a stepping stone for future missions to Mars.

The Artemis Real-time Orbit Website, dubbed AROW, is already available to the public, although there isn’t much to see since the launch is still a few weeks away. It’s also available directly from the NASA app if you’re using a mobile device. The site lets the public visualize data collected by sensors on Orion and sent to the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The website is simple to navigate. You’ll see a visual representation of Artemis II’s progress, including its speed, distance from Earth and distance to the moon. Mobile app users get all of the above, along with an extra augmented reality tracker that lets you point your phone at the sky and see where Artemis II is relative to your position on Earth. It works much like Google Star Map and other stargazing apps that use similar technology.

According to NASA, tracking will be available once the Orion capsule separates from the rocket’s upper stage, which is expected about 3 hours after the upcoming April launch. The site will then update its information in real time for the entire 10-day mission.

NASA is also making flight data available for download so that people interested in creating their own content, such as visualizations or tracking apps, can do so. The data will include all sorts of things, including state vectors, which are data that «describe precisely where Orion is located and how it moves.» That same data will be used by NASA to study Orion and make improvements for future Artemis missions.

An exact launch date for Artemis II hasn’t been set, but the agency plans on launching the mission no earlier than April 1. The launch was originally scheduled for February, but it was delayed multiple times due to a hydrogen leak and a helium flow issue. NASA says it has since fixed both issues.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for March 10, #1003

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for March 10, No. 1,003

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is a fun and diverse mix. If you know your US states, you’ll surely solve the blue category early. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Think Julia Child.

Green group hint: Also, Bro and Sis.

Blue group hint: Minn. and Ore. are two others.

Purple group hint: Hit with your fist.