Happy equinox! As of 10.28am today, it's officially spring

The date and time of the event varies each year, but happened just before 10.30 today. From that point until the autumn equinox on September 22, the day is longer than the night.

The sun appears today as a disk in the sky, and the top half rises above the horizon before the centre. As well as this, sunlight is refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere.

But the equilux - the point at which day and night are exactly equal - occurred last Friday.

Equinox is Latin for aequus (equal) and nox (night) meaning, roughly, “equal night”. The moment of the equinox is defined as the point at which the centre of the Sun’s disk crosses an imaginary line in the sky, the celestial equator.

Meanwhile, daylight saving time begins at 1am this Sunday, March 26.