Why does the sun set earlier in some parts of the world than in others?

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I live in Asia so I spent my whole life having sunset between 6 to 630pm so by that time everywhere was pretty dark and the streetlamps came on. I was pretty shocked later in life when I found out that there are parts of the world like in Europe or the States where it’d still be bright out at fucking 730 or even 8pm. How come? I know that they are behind by Asia and Australia by some hours but why does the sun set later there too?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

This has nothing to do with time zones.

Sunrise and sunset depend on the time of year and your latitude.

The earth is tilted relative to the sun. If you take a ball, stab a stick through the middle, draw a circle around the stick, turn on a light, and tilt the ball, only a certain amount of that circle is lit by the light. If you then move the ball to the other side of the light, a different amount of the circle will be lit.

Because the earth always takes 24h to rotate no matter where you are, this results in the day changing length. This is the exact same thing as what causes seasons.

The reason different places on earth have different sunset/sunrise times is because the difference in illumination is a lot more extreme near the poles than near the equator. At the equator, half of the circle is always lit whilst at the poles it’s either completely lit or not lit at all.

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