Does sun set in east or west?

Answer 1

That's the way it appears.

Of course, it isn't the Sun that's moving; it's the Earth spinning that makes it LOOK, to us riding the spinning Earth, that the Sun is rising in the East and setting in the West. And because the spin axis of the Earth is tilted to the plane of our orbit around the Sun, the direction of sunrise shifts a bit each day depending on our location, varying from northeast to southeast.

Answer 2

The sun sets in the west, and rises in the east. The same is true for the moon, the planets, and the stars in our solar system. This is so because Earth spins toward the east, and it revolves around the sun.

Answer 3

Relative to the earth, the sun has no proper motion. The sun has only the apparent motion of rising in the east and setting in the west. This is true all the time, from any point on the globe between the arctic and the antarctic circles. At any given moment, and from moment to moment, the sun is "rising in the east" from someone's point of view, and also it is "setting in the west from someone else's point of view. There is also the apparent motion of the sun along the ecliptic, its 'path' across the canopy of fixed stars. To talk about the sun's proper motion you have to think about the sun's orbit around the center of the Milky Way.

If you could look through the earth as if it were invisible (you can do this with some astronomy software) there would be from your point of view the apparent movement of the sun from your west to your east, but those experiencing daylight would still be seeing the apparent motion of the sun from east to west, from their point of view. An apparent motion is something like an optical illusion, on a grand scale when it involves the solar system. Clearly the sun is not spinning around us in the sky, even though it really seems to.

There are other equally strange and amazing things that 'seem' to happen when one body orbits another.

Answer 4

Since the Earth rotates about its axis from west to east, i.e. counter-clockwise looking down from the North Pole, and since the Earth's axis is only tilted about 23 some odd degrees with respect to the plane of the Earths orbit around the Sun, the Sun appears to rise from the East, not the South. The exact angle, however, varies depending on the observer's location and the time of year. It may seem that (from the northern hemisphere) the Sun rises from the South, but you need to consider that East does not point where you might think it points, because the lines of latitude on the Earth are not great circle lines.

Answer 5

east

Answer:

The sun rises in different locations depending on the time of year and your location on the surface of the Earth. The sun only rises directly to the east at the vernal and autumnal equinox. It only rises directly in the south at the Arctic circle as the Earth has an axial tilt of 23.5°, in which case, it would not rise at all, but the days would remain dark for some months until the orbit had sufficiently altered the heavenly position. It would then rise from some measure of a south easterly direction.

Answer 6

If you live in the northern hemisphere, then no. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere, then yes. If you live very very far north in the winter or very very far south in the summer, then the sun never rose at all.

*******

I respectfully disagree with the part of the answer answer above about hemispheres. The Earth rotates in a counter-clockwise direction (when viewed from the North Pole.) This is true no matter what hemisphere you are standing on. I suggest you go to a library or a classroom and experiment using their globe.

Imagine you are a a little person standing on the East Coast of America (Northern Hemisphere), looking eastward over the Atlantic Ocean, waiting for the Sun to rise. Now imagine some object in the room is the sun (maybe a clock). Put your face as close to the globe, and your imaginary little person as you can. Rotate the globe around counter-clockwise until you see your clock rise out over the Atlantic Ocean.

Now do it again but this time put your imaginary little person on the East Coast of Africa (Southern Hemisphere). This person is also looking out over the Atlantic Ocean, waiting for the Sun to rise. Rotate the globe again, in the same direction as you did before. You will see the clock rise out over the Atlantic Ocean again.

Now as to the rest of the above answer, let me blow you away with this. If you are standing on the Arctic Circle on June 21st the Sun doesn't rise in the East or the West. It rises to your due North. And if you are standing in that same spot on December 21st the Sun will just barely peak above the horizon to your due South. It will then drop back down out of sight, a minute later. This is why we get 24 hours of Sunup or Sundown, above the Arctic Circle or below the Antarctic Circle.

This affect would be way too hard to demonstrate with a classroom or library globe. I would suggest that if you have a planetarium nearby, ask the director to show you the diurnal motion of the Sun from different locations on the globe, at different times of the year. My guess is they will be happy to demonstrate.

If you don't live near a planetarium, I suggest you use some of your minutes and call a planetarium and ask them if what I have said is true. I am confident he or she will tell you that I am right. You see I have already been to my planetarium and I also lived in Alaska for 13 years.

Here is another suggestion, use your computer to find the E-mail address of a weather reporter in some big city in the Southern Hemisphere. Then ask them where the Sun rises. They will probably get a kick out of corresponding with someone in the northern Hemisphere.

Answer 7

If the Earth itself were not spinning, the Moon would rise in the west, very slowly. If the Earth weren't spinning, the Moon would take about 2 weeks to cross the sky.

But the Earth IS spinning from west to east, making one complete revolution every 23 hours 56 minutes. Because of this, all celestial bodies appear to rise in the east. This includes the Moon.

Answer 8

Yes. But it also orbits the Earth counterclockwise (west-to-east) which slightly slows its "apparent motion" east to west. The Moon will appear in the sky longer than the background stars around it.

Answer 9

The sun always rises in the East and sets in the West. Depending on the season, it may rise more or less north or south of east, and set more or less north or south of west, but there's always at least a fair component of "east" in the rising, and "west" in the setting.

Regardless of whether you are in the Northern or the Southern Hemisphere, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The difference between the hemispheres, however, is that in the Northern, the sun travels across the southern sky, whereas in the south, the sun travels across the northern sky.

In true point of fact, the Sun doesn't really "rise" anywhere; the Sun fundamentally remains in the middle of the solar system. The Sun APPEARS to rise, because the Earth is spinning; the Sun (and Moon, and stars, and everything else) seem to rise in the East, because the Earth is spinning from west to east. The Earth spins west-to-east once every 24 hours.

Answer 10

Any natural astronomical object seen in the western sky is setting.