The first day of autumn is being celebrated by fans of the season and Google alike. The search engine is displaying an animated doodle in honor of the occasion.
In the animation, we see a guy turn the gay leaves of the Google trees into beautiful autumn colors before they fall to the ground. The company’s name is made out of the left-over trunks and branches.
Once you play the animation, and click through to the search results, Google gives you the actual date in one of its quick answer boxes, and informs you that it is indeed the first day of autumn or the Autumnal Equinox.
The Autumnal Equinox happens when the planet’s axis is not tilted either towards the sun nor away from it. This makes it so that the day and the night are close to equal lengths. More on the Equinox here.
Jennifer Love Hewitt is trying out a new hair color in her attempt to get her ‘momjo’ back following the birth of her baby girl Autumn this past November. She debuted lush blonde locks when she was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show earlier this week. The actress has had shoulder length brunette hair for several years now.
While attending an event for her collection at A Pea in the Pod, she was asked how she likes the new hue.
“I love it!” she toldPEOPLE magazine. “I was just inside with the baby and I felt like I was ready for a change. As Giuliana Rancic says, I wanted to get my ‘momjo’ back! I got my mojo back, I wanted my ‘momjo.’”
Jennifer shared a before and after photo with her fans via Twitter.
Love Hewitt is loving being a mom to Autumn, and she says her baby girl loves to dance. She recently talked about not having lost all of her pregnancy weight yet, and that trying to do so isn’t easy.
“It’s hard, it’s really hard,” she said during a recent interview. “I wasn’t sure where I was going to fall and what was going to happen and how I was going to feel. It just feels great to sort of be honest about the fact that it is tough.”
And speaking of her A Pea in the Pod line of clothing–she admits that she’s still wearing some of her maternity clothes.
“There is just where I feel good right now,” she said. “Everything hasn’t returned back to where I want it to be and put on my other clothes and feel good about that.”
Jennifer Love Hewitt isn’t sweating over those last few pounds, however. She’s much too busy enjoying her baby, and since she has a daughter she wants to be sure she’s conveying the right kind of message–even though she’s still just a baby.
“I have a girl so I want her to see some day why her mom has good self-esteem and good body issues,” she said. “It gets you down sometimes, I’m not going to lie. I’ve had days where I’m like, ‘Ugh, I wish this was easier.’ But it’s not, and that’s OK.”
Jennifer Love Hewitt needn’t worry. She looks fabulous–and her new blonde hair color should significantly lift her spirits. It’s a perfect spring and summer shade for the actress.
On Sunday, September 22, the earth’s Northern Hemisphere will move into fall and the Southern Hemisphere will move into spring. The celestial shift that prompts this transition is called an equinox, which happens biannually, around March 21 and September 21.
While rotating on its polar axis every 24 hours, the earth sees night and day – as well as the annual cycle of seasons caused by its 365.25 orbit around the sun. The equinox (latin for equal night) occurs when the earth’s rotation intersects with its orbit. Because Earth is so huge, its mass creates an extremely powerful gyroscopic effect, causing the poles to mostly point in the same direction (though major earthquakes can cause tiny axis wobbling). The direction the north and south poles are pointing has very important consequences for the change of seasons.
The poles are tilted 23.4 degrees relative to the earth’s plane of orbit. This tilt always points toward the celestial pole in the sky, making it appear that the sun is moving across the sky at an angle to the celestial equator, from the vantage of Earthlings. Twice a year, the sun crosses the celestial equator, changing the direction the rays of the sun fall on Earth.
On Sunday, the sun will move from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere, passing along the earth’s equator, rising exactly in the east and setting exactly in the west. Day and night will be of roughly equal length, hence the equinox name. On Monday, the sun will begin shining more on the southern half of Earth, and less in the north, where autumn will begin. For the next 3 months, the sun will continue to “move” southward, marking the solstice on December 21. The days in the north will gradually become shorter and colder. Though, after the solstice, more sunshine will begin coming northward again.
In related news, one can still see the tail end of the Harvest Moon (or Full Corn Moon, as Algonquian tribes called it) in the night’s sky. Up until the solstice in December, one also has a chance to check out a “Hunter’s Moon”, a “Blood Moon”, a “Sanguine Moon”, a “Beaver Moon”, a “Frosty Moon”, an “Oak Moon”, a “Cold Moon” and a “Long Nights Moon”, depending on which lunar nomenclature one prefers.
