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Earth's rotation relative to the Sun causes the 24-hour day/night cycle. A diurnal cycle (or diel cycle) is any pattern that recurs every 24 hours as a result of one full rotation of the planet Earth around its axis. [1] Earth's rotation causes surface temperature fluctuations throughout the day and night, as well as weather changes throughout ...
The spherical shape of Earth causes the Sun to rise and set at different times in different places, and different locations get different amounts of sunlight each day. In order to explain day and night, time zones, and the seasons, some flat Earth conjecturists propose that the Sun does not emit light in all directions, but acts more like a ...
Temporal hours were common in many cultures. A division of day and night into twelve hours each was first recorded in Ancient Egypt.A similar division of day and night was later made in the Mediterranean basin from about Classical Greek Antiquity into twelve temporal hours each (Ancient Greek: ὥραι καιρικαί, romanized: horai kairikai).
Systematically observing the sunrise, people discovered that it occurs between two extreme locations at the horizon and eventually noted the midpoint between the two. Later it was realized that this happens on a day when the duration of the day and the night are practically equal and the word "equinox" comes from Latin aequus, meaning "equal", and nox, meaning "night".
Daytime or day as observed on Earth is the period of the day during which a given location experiences natural illumination from direct sunlight. Daytime occurs when the Sun appears above the local horizon, that is, anywhere on the globe's hemisphere facing the Sun. In direct sunlight the movement of the sun can be recorded and observed using a ...
Earth's terminator as seen from space. A terminator or twilight zone is a moving line that divides the daylit side and the dark night side of a planetary body.The terminator is defined as the locus of points on a planet or moon where the line through the center of its parent star is tangent.
The day-night cycle is one consideration for planetary habitability or the possibility of extraterrestrial life on distant exoplanets. [38] In general, shorter nights result in a higher equilibrium temperature for the planet. [39] On an Earth-like planet, longer day-night cycles may increase habitability up to a point. [40]
The time for one complete rotation is 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.09 seconds – one sidereal day. The first experimental demonstration of this motion was conducted by Léon Foucault. Because Earth orbits the Sun once a year, the sidereal time at any given place and time will gain about four minutes against local civil time, every 24 hours ...