The head of the Jordanian Astronomical Society, Dr. Ammar Al-Sakji, confirmed that next Friday coincides with the end of the summer season astronomically and the beginning of the autumn season, and that the autumn solstice on Friday will be at 4:03 pm Kingdom time.

Al-Sakji said, during an interview with the Jordan News Agency (Petra), that the autumnal equinox occurs in the northern hemisphere and at the same time the spring equinox occurs in the southern hemisphere, meaning that the two equinoxes occur at one moment throughout the globe, taking into account Consider time differences and timings.

Dr. Al-Sakji added that at this moment of the autumn solstice, the sun’s rays perpendicular to the Earth’s equator (which is equivalent to the zero latitude circle), which means that the sun apparently crosses the celestial equator, coming from the northern half of the planetarium towards the southern half.
He explained that solar radiation is distributed almost equally over the two hemispheres, so that the shadows of the bodies disappear on the equator and the sun rises from the geographical east point and sets from the geographical west point, and the hours of the day and night are almost equal.

He pointed out that the Nabataean ancestors used ancient tools to calculate time, including the diurnal sundials, the most important of which are vertical sundials (obelisks), by which time is read by observing the movement of shadow lines caused by blocking those obelisks of the sun’s rays during its apparent movement in the page of the sky on the earth of those Obelisks, which carry divisions of time.
They also used the water clock to measure the time at night by reading the amount of regular water flow between the parts of that clock, explaining that the Nabataean water clock is a circular basin (the first part) in which water is placed, from which water flows from sunset until sunrise to another basin (part two). ) through a channel of limited diameter (the third part), and the amount of water collected in the second part is an indication of the long hours of the night.

He explained that the Jordanian Astronomical Society had made many measurements and research on the Nabataean calendar, which turned out to be a lunar-solar calendar and based on the lunar-solar “Mutink cycle” (19 years), and it also measured the direction of the obelisks, which turned out to be placed in the line connecting the geographical east and west. , which indicates their knowledge of the spring equinox and autumnal equinox.