The Earths Axial Tilt . TKG Take Ten

The sun is lowering it's arc across the sky. Rising lower to skim the sky just a little closer to the horizon every day. But it is not the sun that is moving. It is us. It is the Earth.

The statement above is part whimsy, part truth.

It is the Earth's axial tilt and its revolution around the Sun, that causes the Northern Hemisphere to lean away from the Sun during winter months, resulting in less direct sunlight and shorter daylight hours.

When I study this stuff (and yes stuff is a scientific term - cue laughter) I am reminded of how little I know. Maybe even how little I am. The study of the workings of our planet creates more questions and opens up more rabbit holes to get lost in. I quite like that.

I am very literal and winter and summer feel like magic. The Earth and all her wondrous works blow my Paddington Bear Brain. We need to take such good care of the magic that is our planet.

Here is this mornings sunrise for you.

The sun's apparent path across the sky (the sun is not really moving - we are) changes throughout the year due to Earth's axial tilt and its orbit around the sun. This changes the seasons and our daylight hours.

Axial Tilt. I just love that term. It sounds like a dance move.

Our days are getting shorter and we are approaching the shortest day. Just a little over a month to go. Chicago, Illinois - 100 miles North of our farm - is 3,333 miles from the North Pole. So we get a decent amount of daylight. Nine hours and 59 seconds of sunlight today to be accurate.

Another thing I have learnt in this study is: The Earth's axis undergoes a slow gyration called precession, completing a cycle every 26,000 years. Yes. 26,000 years! It is like a really, really, really, slow wobble. Awe. Right?

When we were kids my Dad would get out oranges and apples and grapefruits and range us kids all around the room holding up our fruit being the sun and the moon and the planets. This is how he taught us about the sky and the universe and the progression of a day and a night and the months and the seasons and the tides and sunlight. He was like a director as he moved us kids around the sun, calling out the hours then days and months.

Don’t even get me started on how he taught us about tectonic plates and volcanoes and earthquakes.

And tides! (We grew up beside the sea remember).

However you were taught about sunrises and sunsets; we ALL get to see them. We don’t have to know much about them to live them. And love them. Whether we understand the whys and wherefores, or can explain the phenomena of returning light and how much and when; we all get to stand in the light of a sunrise. We all know when the sun is coming and when it is gone. Deep in the waters of our blood. With our eyes and faces and our souls. All you need to do is lift your head and look up. Look out. Lift your hands and feel the dawns approach.

Though I have a thorough respect for science - and love to study this - I also have pretty clever friends that make things easy for me. My friend Jim, who studies the night sky, told me this morning “About daylight, the earliest sunsets are the first week of December. They come later slowly after that. The latest sunrises are the first week of January. The combination of those two gives the shortest daylight hours around December 20-21. Science”.

So make the most of these long dark nights. And these fast moving days.

We do love our science Jim and I. You too I think.

Have a gorgeous day.

Celi

Can you remember when you first learnt about this stuff?

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