A 365-day trip across the seasons, condensed to seconds

Wednesday, September 23, 2015, 1:35 PM - It's the fall equinox in the northern hemisphere, the "official" end of summer, but despite the anticipation and hype over the date, many people have a hard time visualizing how it relates to the seasons.

Basically, the Earth is tilted on its axis, and as it orbits the sun, the amount of the sunshine that falls on each hemisphere changes through the year as its position changes. That explains the lower daylight hours in winter and longer daylight hours in summer, key factors in Earth's temperature.

The equinox is when the Earth's angle and position relative to the sun are aligned such that both hemispheres get roughly the same amount of light.

That's the simple explanation, but it's way easier to grasp when you see it represented visually:

That GIF was put together by Simon Proud, an atmospheric physics researcher at Oxford University in the U.K. and tweeted out to mark the equinox.

"It’s a great illustration of how the seasons work, much better than explaining it through diagrams or math," Proud told The Weather Network. "I put it together as I thought it was a cool way to show what makes today special in terms of the equinox. I should also be able to use it for lectures with new students in the future too!"

Proud used Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites to take one photo a day from September 24, 2014, up until September 23, 2015. Though not directly related to his research, he knew the satellite well enough to put the GIF together in about half an hour.

Images from those satellites are profoundly useful, although the long "nights" in the polar regions can make data gathering difficult.

Proud says his own work usually revolves around translating satellite images like this into a useful product -- in his case, something that can be used by pilots and airlines to get them up to speed on weather conditions along their planned flight routes.

"If a plane has advance warning about bad weather ahead then it can take appropriate avoiding action without getting too close," he says. "We also look at ways to detect other hazards like volcanic ash."

WATCH: The equinox this year will play a role in the highest global tides in 18 years