I am confused about sunrise/sunset times?

Question

sometimes I am up all night and when the news comes on say around 5:30am they say that the sunrise is at 6:00 am even though it has already been light out for a good half hour, how far up does the sun have to be for it to be sunrise, same with sunset, they say that sunset is at say 8:30pm even thought it is'nt dark until later

Answer 1

Sunrise, also called sunup in some American English dialects, is the time at which the FIRST PART of the Sun appears above the horizon in the east. Sunrise should not be confused with DAWN, which is the (variously defined) point at which the sky begins to lighten, some time before the sun itself appears, ending twilight. Because atmospheric refraction causes the sun to be seen while it is still below the horizon, both sunrise and sunset are, from one point of view, optical illusions.

EDIT: And JIM could not be more wrong!

Answer 2

Sunrise and sunset occur when the upper edge of the sun is on the horizon (under normal atmospheric conditions and where the horizon is flat). Of course it takes eight minutes for light to travel from the sun to the earth and the earth is continually rotating so that the observed position of the sun is not its true position. A star can rise and set with less confusion because it has no observable diameter but then it takes many light years for its light to reach earth and who knows if and where it actually exists?

Answer 3

I know what you mean but if you think about it the light from the sun would be visiable long before you actually see the sun itelf, which is the sunrise time.