Where on Earth is the very first place the sun shines at the start of the day?

Question

And where does it set on earth at the very end of the day?

Answer 1

Ah, the day begins in the Marshall Islands, or so they say in the Marshall Islands. Each day begins just west of the International Date Line, as the terminator travels west, and ends just east of the date line.

Answer 2

At first glance one would like to say "Somewhere along the International Dateline."

However; the International Dateline extends from the North Pole to the South Pole and since for six months of the year the sun always shines on the North Pole and for the other six monthe of the year it always shines on the South Pole then there is no first place that the sun shines at the start of the day.

The question could be modified to:
Between the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic Circle where on Earth is the very first place the sun shines at the start of the day?
The answer should be somewhere along the International Dateline. Practically speaking it will vary somewhat with the time of year.

The International Dateline (ID) zigzags east up near the Arctic Circle and down near New Zealand. New Zealand is pretty far west of the ID and there are only some low lying islands near it in the South Pacific, so one looks to Russia near Alaska.

That part of Russia that is in the easterly zig of the ID is the Chukotskiy Poluostov peninsula, and the easternmost place with a name is Uelen. Uelen is just below the Arctic Circle.

Is Uelen the place where the sun first shines? Doubful since it is a coastal place, which means that it is at sealevel. The peninsula is rugged with at least two unnamed peaks at about 3,000 ft and 3500 ft. where the sun may actually strike first. An exact answer is probably impossible to come by for this modified question, however; somewhere along the eastern part of the Chukotskiy Poluostov peninsula is probably the very first place the sun shines at the start of the day.

To put this query in perspective one needs to know about a fued between towns in Maine. The names of these towns elude me, but they are near the eastern border of Maine. They both claim to be the site where the sun first shines on the United States every morning. One of the TV shows did a piece on this and determined that no one had determined where the sun shone first, not a governmental or civilian agency knew. To top it all off the National Park Service claims that the first spot for the sun to shine in the US is on the top of Cadilac Mountain in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island along the Maine coast.

Hope this answer helps you out!

Answer 3

The sun never "sets" on the earth, which is round.
By human convention of time based on when the sun is exactly over head being mid-day or noon, the day starts at the internation al date line running North-South in the mid-Pacific. Therefore the earliest hour the sun can be seen is sunrise just west on the international date line. Similarly, the last place on earth the sun can be seen in any particular day is the sunset just east of the international date line, it having already set on that day in the rest of the world.

Answer 4

I'm not sure if this was mean't to be a trick question or not but the sun is always shining on the earth.

This is why when it is dark in the US, it is hot and sunny in Australia and vice versa. There is not point in the day or year that the earth is completely blanketed by darkness or sunlight.

It is for this reason that we have time zones and there is no offical "start to the day" unless you count Grenich Mean Time at 12:00am. Not practical if you are living in a different time zone.

Answer 5

You may not realize this, but the Sun always shines. And because the Earth is divided into time zones, it rises and sets at different times for each time zone. The Earth is moving around the Sun and it is also rotating. The rising and setting of the Sun is actually your area of the Earth rotating into view of the sun.

Answer 6

There is no begining and no end to our universe. We have no up or down, or left or right. We are in a galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars, in a universe of billions of billions of galaxies. So, where the sun rises and sets, and the time zones, etc. is all a matter of our earthly perception.

Answer 7

I'll give you a hint. It's always rising somewhere on Earth, and is always setting somewhere else.

Answer 8

Japan ,thats why it is called land of rising sun