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The Tropic of Cancer's position is not fixed, but constantly changes because of a slight wobble in the Earth's longitudinal alignment relative to the ecliptic, the plane in which the Earth orbits around the Sun. Earth's axial tilt varies over a 41,000-year period from about 22.1 to 24.5 degrees, and as of 2000 is about 23.4 degrees, which will ...
The rotational axis of Earth, for example, is the imaginary line that passes through both the North Pole and South Pole, whereas the Earth's orbital axis is the line perpendicular to the imaginary plane through which the Earth moves as it revolves around the Sun; the Earth's obliquity or axial tilt is the angle between these two lines.
] The Earth's axis of rotation tilts about 23.5 degrees, relative to the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun. As the Earth orbits the Sun, this creates the 47° declination difference between the solstice sun paths, as well as the hemisphere-specific difference between summer and winter.
Obliquity of the ecliptic is the term used by astronomers for the inclination of Earth's equator with respect to the ecliptic, or of Earth's rotation axis to a perpendicular to the ecliptic. It is about 23.4° and is currently decreasing 0.013 degrees (47 arcseconds) per hundred years because of planetary perturbations. [13]
The vertical axis is the altitude in degrees above the horizon. The first day of each month is shown in black, and the solstices and equinoxes are shown in green. It can be seen that the equinoxes occur approximately at altitude φ = 90° − 51.5° = 38.5° , and the solstices occur approximately at altitudes φ ± ε where ε is the axial ...
In the case of the Earth, it is almost identical with its axis of rotation, with the discrepancy due to shifts of mass on the planet's surface. The vector of the figure axis F of the system (or maximum principal axis, the axis which yields the largest value of moment of inertia) wobbles around M. This motion is called Euler's free nutation.
Earth's rotation axis moves with respect to the fixed stars (inertial space); the components of this motion are precession and nutation. It also moves with respect to Earth's crust; this is called polar motion. Precession is a rotation of Earth's rotation axis, caused primarily by external torques from the gravity of the Sun, Moon and other bodies.
The 23rd parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 23 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane, about 50 kilometres (31 mi) south of the Tropic of Cancer.It crosses Africa, Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean.