Tomorrow is the Solstice! Why is the sun north of my location in the morning, but south, at noon?

Question

The "Tropic" lines divide the earth into equal parts at, I think, 23 degrees N, S..
Those lines == Tropic of Cancer, T of Capricorn.
They mark the furtherest north/south, where the sun appears to be directly overhead, at noon. --my question is, I am at 40 degrees north. So, how is it that the morning/evening sun is "north" of overhead (Zenith), yet for noon, it is back, south of Zenith?

Answer 1

Because of the Earth's tilt, if you are in the Northern Hemisphere north of the Tropic of Cancer during the summer, the Sun actually rises in the northeast, reaches its highest slightly in the south, and sets in the northwest. As you move south, this arc tilts north; when you are on the Tropic of Cancer on June 21st, the Sun rises exactly 23 degrees north of east, reaches zenith (straight overhead) at noon, and sets exactly 23 degrees north of west. Between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer, the sun actually only makes it to 23 degrees north of the zenith at noon.

At 40 degrees north, on June 21st, the sun should rise about 40-50 degrees north of east, peaks at exactly 17 degrees south of zenith, and sets about 40-50 degrees north of west.

If you need anymore convincing, note that at the Arctic Circle, 67 degrees north latitude, on June 21st the sun rises and sets due north, and at noon it is exactly 44 degrees south of zenith at noon.

In short, in the northern hemisphere, the sun normally rises and sets to the north, and moves south until noon. Whether it peaks at the zenith or north or south of it depends on how far north you are.

Answer 2

The sun is North of the equator so when you look east in the morning, the angle you see makes it easy to observe that fact. If you have a globe of the earth handy, and it is mounted in a frame that applies a correct tilt to the globe, hold the globe so the north pole is tilted toward an imaginary "sun" and have that sun to your right. That represents the relative position of the Earth and sun at this time of year.
With the Earth held in that position, rotate the globe so you are looking at your location on earth and the sun is located to your right (the east). That would be your location at sunrise. Looking at the lines of latitude on the globe, you will see they have a southerly tilt relative to your position and the position of the sun
You LIVE north of the tropic of Capricorn (that line on a globe that denotes the limit of the sun's northern trajectory) so at noon you have to look a little south to see the sun.
To prove thet, again rotate the globe (90 degrees) so your location is now looking almost straight up at the sun.
Your location will be a bit north of the tropic of Capricorn which is where you would be standing if the sun were straight up.. So you are looking slightly south.

Answer 3

If you're at 40 degrees north, then the sun CAN'T be directly overhead at noon, but it is very high in the sky. The sun can *only* appear directly overhead between 23 1/2 degrees north & south; beyond that, it will never be straight up.

Answer 4

During the summer and autumn solstices, on any latitude on earth, the arc of travel of the sun across the sky is at minimun curvature. Since you are on a northern latitude greater than 24 degrees, the sun will rise and set a little north of you and appear south of you at noon. What you need to do to see this for yourself is to place your eye perpendicular with exactly half of the spherical earth and rotate the globe through one day. For Spring, which is the season concerned with your question, tilt the axis away from you. It will appear to be a straight line. Your eye will be positioned on the planetary orbital plane and you will see your location travel north and south ever so slightly as will all the other locations in the world. Keep in mind, the sun is always located on the planetary plane, where your eye will be. It is very difficult to express the effect in words but if you set up a globe and imagine, or construct from cardboard, the planetary plane of rotation placed at exactly one half of the globe's diameter the effect will easily be seen as you rotate your globe..... .....

Answer 5

The fact that the sun is south of the zenith at noon, is easy to understand. If you draw a diagram (from a point of view in space, showing the earth on the left and the sun on the right), it's pretty easy to see that, at noon on June solstice, the sun is south of you if you're farther north than 23 degrees N.

The other case (the sun on the horizon) is harder to visualize because the 3rd dimension comes into play. One way to visualize it is this:

Picture yourself in your back yard. Now picture the "celestial equator," a giant imaginary ring around the earth, in the same plane as the earth's equator, but far out in space. From your back yard, you would see exactly half of the celestial equator, like a big semicircle, stretching from due East to due West, and tipped southward from the vertical by exactly the amount of your latitude.

Next, picture the imaginary circle in the sky that the sun appears to travel along, during its "journey" from sunrise to sunset. The plane of that circle will be parallel to to the plane of the celestial equator. However, since the sun is north of the equator (in June), the plane of the "sun circle" will be north of the plane of the celestial equator.

If you can manage to fix these images firmly in your head, you should see that you're able to see _more_ than half of the "sun circle" from your back yard (and this is consistent with the fact that daylight lasts longer than 12 hours). And also, that the points where the "sun circle" touches the horizon are northward of the "due east" and "due west" points.

Answer 6

Axial tilt. The sun (for northerners at Summer Solstice) actually "rises" in the northeast and "sets" in the southwest.

On radar weather on TV, you can see radar actually pick up sunrise and sunset. It appears as a bright line on the map. Here in Minnesota at Summer Solstice, that sunrise line runs from the Twin Cities almost exactly to the northeast.

Answer 7

It's intuitive if you have a feel for the way the sky moves

but this
http://astro.unl.edu/naap/motion3/animations/sunmotions.html

is very good for showing it

Answer 8

summer starts at 2:10 tomorrow. thats wat they said on the news!!! :)