Motion of the Earth - Science With Ms. Hawkins
Motion of the Earth: Climates, Seasons, & Days
Earth has two major types of motion
Earth’s Rotation
Earth’s Revolution
Earth’s Rotation
The spinning of the Earth on its axis
the axis is the imaginary line that runs vertically through the center of the Earth
rotates from East to West
Rotation of the Earth produces 2 main effects:
Speed causes the length of a day to be about 24 hours
Causes daily changes from day to night
At all times half of the Earth faces the sun, while the other half is in darkness
Areas within the Artic & Antarctic circles experience several weeks of daylight or darkness depending on the time of year
Earth’s Revolution
The movement of Earth around the sun
Earth’s orbit is the slightly elliptical path that it travels around the sun
The sun is not in the center:
Around January 3rd earth is about 147million km away (closer)
Around July 4th earth is about 152 million km away (farther)
Revolution has 2 major effects:
The time it takes Earth to revolve around the sun once defines the length of a year
It takes 365 ¼ days to make one complete revolution
Every 4th year is leap year to make up for the extra day we gained
Earth revolves with a tilt of the axis
The revolution causes the changing seasons
Changing Seasons
Earth’s tilted axis combined with the revolution causes seasons to change
Earth’s axis is at an angle of 23.5° to its orbit
The axis always points in the same direction as the Earth orbits the Sun
The Northern hemisphere points toward the sun half of the year & away from the sun for half the year
The tilt causes the Earth’s surface to receive different amounts of solar energy throughout the year
Solstices
A solstice is the day when the Sun reaches its greatest distance north or south of the equator
The day Earth is tilted most toward the sun
June 21st is the summer solstice (northern hemisphere)
The most direct rays hit the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere causing the northern hemisphere to have warmer temperatures and more sunlight hours
Longest day of sunlight for the year
Daylight gets a little shorter each day after the solstice
Dec. 21st is the winter solstice (northern hemisphere)
The most direct rays hit the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere causing the northern hemisphere to have cooler temperatures and less sunlight hours
Shortest day of sunlight for the year
Daylight hours get a little longer each day after the solstice
Equinox
An equinox is the day the Sun’s rays are directly above the Earth’s equator.
During this time equal amounts of sunlight are received all over the earth with the most direct rays hitting at 90° at the equator
March 21st is the spring equinox (northern hemisphere)
September 22nd is the autumn equinox (northern hemisphere)
Seasons are opposites in the Southern Hemisphere
Radiation from the Sun
The hemisphere that is tilted toward the sun receives more daylight hours and absorbs more radiation from the sun
The suns radiation strikes the earth surface at a higher angle when the hemisphere is tilted toward the sun
The higher the angle the more radiation the earth absorbs creating warmer temperatures
Climatic Zones
The amount of sunlight affects Climatic Zones
The latitude, distance north or south from the equator, affects the temperatures that commonly occur in that area.
The further from the equator the less direct the suns rays are
Theses yearly patterns cause weather patterns to occur in different regions of the earth that create climates
Biomes are large geographical areas with similar climates and ecosystems
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