John Wheeler: The equinox is not all that equal, except at the equator

FARGO — The autumnal equinox is at 7:43 a.m. Sunday, Sept.

22. At this moment, the equator of the Earth will lie in exactly the same plane as Earth's orbit around the sun. A person standing on the equator tomorrow, if there are no clouds, will see the sun rise exactly due east at 6 a.



m. and continue rising until it is exactly overhead at noon before setting due west at 6 p.m.

North and south of the equator, the process gets progressively less perfect. Here in the mid-latitudes, the sunrise and sunset are not precisely twelve hours each and the sunrise and sunset times are both a few minutes past 7 a.m.

and 7 p.m. (accounting for Daylight Saving Time).

The messiness and imperfectness of all of this is further proof that the world is not flat, in case anyone out there is still hung up on that one..