How can you tell what time of year it is?

Answer 1

# Make note of the position of the sun. If you're in the northern hemisphere, face the south; if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, face north. (If you don't have a compass, use one of these techniques.) In other words, look at the equator--that is the line the sun generally follows in the sky. It always rises in the east (which is to your left if you're facing south, to your right if you're facing north) and sets in the west.

#* If the sun is in the exact center of the sky, it's exactly noon. A nickname for this is "high noon" because the sun is at its highest at noon and the time will be 12:00 PM, but this assumes no daylight saving time, and that you're in the middle of your time zone. For instance, in Salt Lake City, Utah (US), "high noon" is actually at 1:30 PM in the summer because there's an hour added by daylight saving and another thirty minutes added because the city is that time distance (west) away from the center of the time zone. #* If the sun is not in the exact center, you will have to do more figuring. If it is morning, the sun will be in the eastern half of the sky. If it is afternoon, the sun will be in the western half. You can use fractions to divide the sky into hours, and find the approximate time. # Estimate the number of hours between sunrise and sunset. This varies depending on the season and location. Winter days are shorter than summer ones: about ten and fourteen hours, respectively. Spring and fall days tend to be about twelve hours long, especially close to the equinox (late March or late September). # Divide the sun's path into segments. If you're looking towards the equator, you can imagine the sun following an imaginary arc from east to west, beginning and ending at the horizon, even if it's obscured. Visualize dividing that arc into equal segments; the number of segments should equal the number of hours in the day. If you know there are twelve hours in a day, you would divide the arc into twelve equal parts, six on the eastern half and six on the western half.

#* If you're having trouble visualizing the sky in segments, you can use your hand or fist to "measure" segments. Going hand over hand, count the amount of fists from one end of the arc to the zenith (the highest point of the sky). Take that number as half of a day. For instance, if you counted 9 fists, and you know the day is 12 hours long, nine fists would be equal to six hours. To figure out how much time each fist represents, divide the number of hours by the number of fists. One fist, then would equal 6 divided by 9 - or about 2/3 hours (40 minutes). This is your hours-per-fist. # Determine which segment the sun is in. Starting in the east, count how many segments there are before you get to the segment that the sun is in. That will tell you how many daytime hours have passed. The segments that the sun hasn't touched yet indicate how many daytime hours are remaining. If you know the time of high noon, sunrise, or sunset in your area, then you can approximate the current time.

#* Using the Salt Lake City example given earlier, let's say there are fourteen segments (because it's summer) and the sun is on the ninth segment (from the east). The eighth segment (right after the highest point) begins at 1:30 PM. The ninth segment begins one hour after that, so if the sun is in the ninth segment, it's probably between 2:30 and 3:30 PM. If the sun was in the sixth segment, the time would be between 11:30 AM and 12:30 PM. With practice, you'll be able to estimate time without consciously dividing the sky. #* If you used the fists method, count the number of fists from the eastern end of the arc to the sun. Multiply that number times the hours-per-fist measurement. Let's say you counted three fists from east to west. Three hours times forty minutes equals 120 minutes, or two hours. So it's been two hours since sunrise. If you know the time of sunrise in your area and season, you can approximate what time it is.

Answer 2

You can tell what time of year it is by looking at the weather, the position of the sun in the sky, the length of daylight hours, and the types of plants and animals that are active. Additionally, seasonal changes such as leaves changing color, snowfall, and blooming flowers can also provide clues to the time of year.

Answer 3

The sun has no solid surface, so its diameter depends on what density of gas you want to consider
as its limit. It's most commonly given as 864,000 miles ... more than 3-1/2 times the distance from
the earth to the moon !

The sun's average distance from itself is approximately zero.

Answer 4

The easiest way to do that is to take a vastly magnified photo of the sun through a telescope with a long focal length, and measure its diameter on the photo.

(Sure, the image gets dimmer the more you try and magnify it, but hey, who cares! We're working with the sun here!)

When you do that, you find that just like the earth, the sun's diameter is greatest around its equator, and just like in earth's case, the reason is its spin.

Since the sun isn't solid, different parts of it can rotate at different rates. Depending on which part of the surface you're looking at, the sun's rotation period varies 25 - 36 earth days. That may seem slow, but let's work it out:

The sun's diameter at the equator is 863,705 miles.

Equatorial circumference = pi D = 2,713,409 miles.

If the equator is rotating in 36 days, a point on it is traveling at 3,141 miles per hour.

If the equator is rotating in 25 days, a point on it is traveling at 4,522 miles per hour.

At speeds like that, it's no wonder that the non-solid sun bulges around the middle.

Answer 5

When the Earth is in summer in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun has a direct angle to the Earth. When the Earth is in winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun is indirectly shining on the Earth. It is the same for the Southern Hemisphere. It is much like shining a flashlight on the wall. If the flashlight is at a 90 degree angle, there is a lot less surface area it is shining on. but, if you move it to 45 degrees, the same amount of light is shining on a larger amount of surface area.

Answer 6

Solar temperature measurements on the ground. Common method for doing this flux measurements energy from the sun on the ground and from that of the total energy released by the sun, and after that by using astronomical charts temperature calculated the sun.

For sun usually the shadow of North Korea may be used.

Answer 7

Make a pinhole camera by putting a pinhole in your piece of cardboard. Hold a piece of paper one meter away from the cardboard. Your pin-hole camera will cast an image of the sun on your paper. Measure the diameter of the image cast on your paper. The ratio of the sun's actual diameter to its distance from the earth is the same as the ratio of the diameter of the sun's image to the distance between the cardboard and the image. In other words, the diameter of the sun (X) divided by the distance from the earth to the sun is equal to the diameter of your image divided by the distance from the pinhole to the image. Good luck.

Answer 8

The sun sets in the west and rises in the east, and depending on where in the world you are tells you the time they happen. It usually rises between 6:44a.m. and 8:00 a.m. in the US and Canada. An sets between 6:30 p.m. and 7:50 p.m.

Answer 9

The time of sunrise and sunset is very dependent on the precise location and the date in question. Please re-post your question with the date and the city name or ZIP code.

You can calculate the time of sunrise and sunset easily by visiting the United States Naval Observatory web site's Sunrise & Sunset calculator. You will need the date, city and state for US locations, or the date, latitude, longitude and time zone for any other locations in the world.

The site is

http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/data-services/rs-one-day

You can also calculate the times of sunrise and sunset for one year at a given location at the site:

http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/data-services/rs-one-year The links are provided in the "Related Links" area below.

Answer 10

If it's a brighter looking sky, chances are that it's probably the day time. somewhere in the A.M. range. When it becomes a darker shade, almost black than it has become evening time. almost certainly in the P.M. range (1:00 Am, 2:00 AM, 3:00 AM, and 4:00 AM are notable exceptions)