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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 .
Sun path, sometimes also called day arc, refers to the daily (sunrise to sunset) and seasonal arc-like path that the Sun appears to follow across the sky as the Earth rotates and orbits the Sun. The Sun's path affects the length of daytime experienced and amount of daylight received along a certain latitude during a given season.
The change of position is a result of the shifting of the angle in the sky of the path that the Sun takes in respect to the stars (the ecliptic). The diagram resembles a figure eight . Globes of the Earth often display an analemma as a two-dimensional figure of equation of time ("sun fast") vs. declination of the Sun.
The sun has always been visible in the sky, and its position forms the basis of apparent solar time, the timekeeping method used in antiquity. An Egyptian obelisk constructed c. 3500 BC, [16] a gnomon in China dated 2300 BC, [17] and an Egyptian sundial dated 1500 BC [18] are some of the earliest methods for measuring the sun's position.
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System.It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light and infrared radiation with 10% at ultraviolet energies.
The ecliptic is the apparent path of the Sun throughout the course of a year. [4] Because Earth takes one year to orbit the Sun, the apparent position of the Sun takes one year to make a complete circuit of the ecliptic. With slightly more than 365 days in one year, the Sun moves a little less than 1° eastward [5] every day.
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Solar longitude, commonly abbreviated as Ls, is the ecliptic longitude of the Sun, i.e. the position of the Sun on the celestial sphere along the ecliptic.It is also an effective measure of the position of the Earth (or any other Sun-orbiting body) in its orbit around the Sun, [1] usually taken as zero at the moment of the vernal equinox. [2]