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The ecliptic forms the center of the zodiac, a celestial belt about 20° wide in latitude through which the Sun, Moon, and planets always appear to move. [33] Traditionally, this region is divided into 12 signs of 30° longitude, each of which approximates the Sun's motion in one month. [34]
The position of the Sun in the sky is a function of both the time and the geographic location of observation on Earth's surface. As Earth orbits the Sun over the course of a year, the Sun appears to move with respect to the fixed stars on the celestial sphere, along a circular path called the ecliptic.
The Sun has been an object of veneration in many cultures. It has been a central subject for astronomical research since antiquity. The Sun orbits the Galactic Center at a distance of 24,000 to 28,000 light-years. From Earth, it is 1 astronomical unit (1.496 × 10 8 km) or about 8 light-minutes away.
Ignoring the influence of other Solar System bodies, Earth's orbit, also called Earth's revolution, is an ellipse with the Earth–Sun barycenter as one focus with a current eccentricity of 0.0167. Since this value is close to zero, the center of the orbit is relatively close to the center of the Sun (relative to the size of the orbit).
On the date of the equinox, the center of the Sun spends a roughly equal amount of time above and below the horizon at every location on the Earth, so night and day [d] are about the same length. Sunrise and sunset can be defined in several ways, but a widespread definition is the time that the top limb of the Sun is level with the horizon. [ 28 ]
Solstice day arcs as viewed from 70° latitude. At local noon the winter Sun culminates at −3.44°, and the summer Sun at 43.44°. Said another way, during the winter the Sun does not rise above the horizon, it is the polar night. There will be still a strong twilight though. At local midnight the summer Sun culminates at 3.44°.
Earth has experienced 12 consecutive months of warming at or above 1.5 degrees Celsius — a threshold for avoiding the worst effects of climate change.
Thus, to simplify the diagram, some sun charts show days for different months as the same, e.g. March 21 equals September 21. The accompanying sun chart for Berlin accounts for deviations in symmetry between the two halves of the year through the use of the analemma, represented by each figure eight on the chart.