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Solstice day arcs as viewed from 70° latitude. At local noon the winter Sun culminates at −3.44°, and the summer Sun at 43.44°. Said another way, during the winter the Sun does not rise above the horizon, it is the polar night. There will be still a strong twilight though. At local midnight the summer Sun culminates at 3.44°.
The day this occurs is called the June solstice day. Similarly, for an observer on the South Pole, the Sun reaches the highest position on the December solstice day. When it is the summer solstice at one Pole, it is the winter solstice on the other. The Sun's westerly motion never ceases as Earth is continually in rotation.
At the equator, the solar rotation period is 24.47 days. This is called the sidereal rotation period, and should not be confused with the synodic rotation period of 26.24 days, which is the time for a fixed feature on the Sun to rotate to the same apparent position as viewed from Earth (the Earth's orbital rotation is in the same direction as the Sun's rotation).
The Sun appears to move northward during the northern spring, crossing the celestial equator on the March equinox. Its declination reaches a maximum equal to the angle of Earth's axial tilt (23.44° or 23°26') [ 8 ] [ 9 ] on the June solstice , then decreases until reaching its minimum (−23.44° or -23°26') on the December solstice , when ...
The shortest day is two weeks away, but the earliest sunsets are here. The earliest sunset (Dec. 4) and latest sunrise (Jan. 11) are 38 days apart.
Although the Sun appears to "rise" from the horizon, it is actually the Earth's motion that causes the Sun to appear. The illusion of a moving Sun results from Earth observers being in a rotating reference frame; this apparent motion caused many cultures to have mythologies and religions built around the geocentric model, which prevailed until astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus formulated his ...
During solar eclipses viewed from a point to the south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the Moon moves from left to right on the disc of the Sun (see, for example, photos with timings of the solar eclipse of November 13, 2012), while viewed from a point to the north of the Tropic of Cancer (i.e., in the Northern Hemisphere), the Moon moves from ...
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