why does the sun go down earlier in the winter and much later in the summer?
In: Physics
The earth’s North and South poles aren’t exactly perpendicular to the sun. It has a tilt.
If you were to draw a line where the sun is “directly over” on the earth, over the course of a year, it wouldn’t be a straight line across the planet. It varies from 30 degrees north of the equator (called The Tropic of Cancer) to 30 degrees south of the equator (the Tropic of Capricorn).
On the Spring and Autumn equinoxes, it’s more or less directly over the equator. On the solstice in December, it’s 30 degrees south of the equator (which means the farther north you are, the less daylight you get, and the farther south you are the more daylight you get). It’s the opposite on the Solstice in June. You’ll hear them called Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice, but that’s for people who live in the Northern Hemisphere (December is summer time in the Southern Hemisphere).
tl;dr – in the winter, you’re not in the direct sunlight compared to someone on the other side of the planet.
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