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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 is 1.4 million kilometers (4.643 light-seconds) wide, about 109 times wider than Earth, or four times the Lunar distance, and contains 99.86% of all Solar System mass. The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star that makes up about 99.86% of the mass of the Solar System. [26]
The European Space Agency last week released four stunning high-res images that show the sun in all its fiery glory. Newly-released photos capture the sun in highest resolution ever, space agency says
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 solar zenith angle is the zenith angle of the sun, i.e., the angle between the sun’s rays and the vertical direction.It is the complement to the solar altitude or solar elevation, which is the altitude angle or elevation angle between the sun’s rays and a horizontal plane.
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]