bye this is such a stupid question
In: Earth Science
Yes. Half of the world is facing the sun at any given time, so the other half of the world is facing away from it. If you’ve ever been on a carousel or merry-go-round, you understand what rotation is. If you picked a random stationary object nearby as the sun, then you would see it “rise” as it came into view and then “set” as it left your view. Everyone else on the ride would see the rising and setting at different points in time.
The planet Earth both rotates on its own axis, and circles the sun.
The rotation on the axis causes the sun to “set” on a horizon, while it “rises” on the other side.
The Earth will generally be lit up on half the planet at any given time.
A quick way to experience this, grab a large ball and a flash light. Point the light at the ball and slowly rotate the ball. The light will always be on the ball, but only on the side that is visible to the sun, that would be “Day Time”. The side away from the sun is “Night Time”.
Put your fist up to a light bulb. One side is very bright, while the other is in shadow. Now turn your fist. One part of the fist is now turning into the light and getting brighter. The other side is turning away from the light and getting darker. In other words, the light bulb is “setting” on one side of your fist and “rising” on the other.
Well, imagine a flashlight that you move around a ball. When you light one side the other side is darker, and when you move the flashlight around the ball, the part that was lit gets dark bit by bit. So day and night cycles, are pretty much that, the lit part of the ball (earth) moving around and leaving the other side dark. That is also why technically it’s not an on/off, it’s more like a lit area moving bit by bit.
Picture the sunrise and sunset as something that is always happening, and just traveling around the earth.
Picture the sunrise and sunset as something that is always happening, and just traveling around the earth.
A little side fact: Because we have an atmosphere, sunlight gets scattered with blue light scattering the most and giving the sky it’s iconic blue color. You have blue light coming from parts of the sky where the sun isn’t.
But that blue *comes out* of “other light.” That’s why sunsets and sunrises are distinctively *not blue* – your blue skies are someone else’s sunrises and sunsets.
It’s not that the sun is rising, it’s that the earth is rotating relative to the sun. Grab a flashlight, a tennis ball, and maybe a little toothpick/piece of tape to put on the tennis ball like it’s a person standing up. Shine the light on the tennis ball and rotate it with your little person on there. As they rotate around, it will look like the sun is rising/setting to them
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