Google Doodle celebrates the start of fall
Digital Reporter
Tuesday, September 23, 2014, 3:12 PM - Google is celebrating the start of the fall season with an animated Doodle.
The illustration is the work of Google artist Sophia Foster-Dimino, and it's reminiscent of Eleanor Davis' spring equinox Doodle, which showed up on the site in March.
The animation features a man walking through a forest as the trees change colour, ending with the leaves falling off the trees.
It's one of the nearly 2,000 Doodles the Google team has created over the years.
WHAT IS THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX?
The first day of fall is called the autumnal equinox.
The word "equinox" comes from Latin, meaning "equal night". It refers to the 12 hour long-day and night that occurs on this special day of the year.
RELATED: Check out our 2014 fall outlook
On the autumnal equinox the Sun reaches its halfway point in its migration towards its lowest point in the midday sky, which we'll see on the December solstice.
The equinox represents a geometrical alignment of the Earth with the Sun, when the sun appears positioned right above our planet's equator.
As the fall season progresses the Sun appears to continue moving south until the winter solstice, when it slowly begins migrating northward.
