Can someone just walk me through how it might be summer in Australia at the moment.
I feel like I understand the premise but I’m amazed I have only discovered this recently.
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Right now if you live north of the equator you are experiencing winter.
Days are growing shorter and night are rowing longer. In fact next Wednesday will be the shortest day and of the year, before days are going to grow longer again.
At the same time in the southern hemisphere the opposite is happening. and December 21st will be he longest day of the year if you live in a place like Australia.
IF you are in the north the sun is up in the sky for shorter amount of times right now and it doesn’t rise as high in the sky.
If you go up far enough north it might have stopped rising at all.
Meanwhile in the south the sun will be up for longer. in Antarctica the sun doesn’t set at all right now.
This is because the earth is round. The world is a sphere and it rotates on an axis once a day. However the axis it rotates on is slightly tilted in respect to the sun.
Over the course of the year this tilt means that part of the globe is tilted away from the sun and the other half tilted towards it.
Right now the north is tilted away from the sun and the south of the globe is tilted towards it.
Half a year from now when the earth has traveled halfway around the sun, the tilt will still be in the same direction, but then the earth will be on the other side of the sun.
The north will be tilted towards the sun and the south away from it.
This is how we get seasons.
Additional fun fact:
The orbit of the earth around the sun is not quite circular.
This means earth is at one point closer to the sun than at others.
You might think that Earth is closest to the sun when it is warmest outside, but if you live in the northern hemisphere that is not true.
The planet will be at its closest to the sun on January 4th. It was the farthest away from the sun on the 4th of July this year.
So if you live in the north it is coldest outside when the sun is the closest. Which is really unexpected.
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