Equinoxes and solstices

In 2026 the June solstice is on 21 June and the December solstice on 21 December (UTC). Times are shown in UTC.

What they mean

At the equinoxes the sun is directly over the equator, and day and night are roughly the same length everywhere. At the solstices the sun reaches its furthest point north (June) or south (December): the longest day of the year in one hemisphere and the shortest in the other. In the northern hemisphere the March equinox marks the start of astronomical spring and the December solstice the start of winter; south of the equator it is the other way round.

Sunrise and sunset in your city · Moon phases · Eclipses

Calculated with the formulas in Jean Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms (chapter 27), and checked against the US Naval Observatory: all 24 dates and times from 2025 to 2030 agree to within about a minute. All sources.

📖 Why isn't the earliest sunset on the shortest day? — read our guide