I know that in the winter equinox the axis is as far away from the sun as it’s going to get. Each day after that it moves closer towards the sun. What is it called ? Sunward, that a way?
In: Planetary Science
The earth’s axis doesn’t move (at least not on timescales relevant to this discussion). It always points in the same direction. If you put a Sun and an Earth on a table in a room, the north pole could be pointed toward one corner of the ceiling. If you move the Earth around the Sun on the table to simulate a year, no matter what, the axis will still be pointed toward that corner.
If you do that then you can see that sometimes the Sun will be “in front” of that corner (the axis has to point “over” it) and sometimes on the other side of the earth from the corner.
When the Sun is “in front” of the corner, the north pole is in summer. Six months later, the north pole is in winter.
You could use the term “sunward” or “inward” to describe a direction that’s moving toward the Sun, but it’s not the Earth’s axis that’s doing the moving. The Earth is orbiting the Sun and bringing it in and out of prominence for each hemisphere.
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