The Earth viewer views the sun?

Question

I came up with this thought while taking a shower today. Yes that's right.

A creature (let's say a rabbit) is sitting on a lawn chair relaxing for 24 hours. He watches the sky the entire day and sees the sun rise, go around and set again.

In the winter time, there is less day light and time than in the summer.
The rabbit (and I) wonders: (IMPORTANT Note for my question - the rabbit has no clock to guide him, so it's just from his observation) - does the sun appear to rotate around the sky faster than it would in the summer, or does it simply stay in the sky visibly for less time total?

I hope that made sense, sorry to not be clear - I was just curious. I'm talking about what the rabbit experiences through his outlook.

thanks for the answers so far,

but once again, I'll repeat - I am interested in how the rabbit sees the speed and duration of the sun going around - not how fast or for how long the sun actually goes around and is visible to a particular spot on the earth. Think of the rabbit....

Scientia, your answer is really cool. If you do read this question again to check up on it, can you edit your question slightly?

I only picked rabbit just to pick a creature on the earth. Say it's a human, but with no watch on him/her.
Does the creature see the sun moving at the same speed or faster, in addition to seeing it in the sky for a shorter period in the winter?

thanks

Answer 1

I understand your question. You already know why the sun lights the winter less than the summer.

But the rabbit doesn't have a watch. He cant measure how much longer the day is in the summer. But he senses that the relationship between the amount of light and dark is changing between summer and winter.

In winter the sun is lower in the northern sky because the earth is tilted away from it. But that makes the day light much shorter AND the night much longer.

That ratio of light to dark would be obvious even if you did not have a watch to measure how many hours of sunlight there was in the summer to compare it to the winter

Jerry

Answer 2

The Sun doesn't rotate around the sky. It follows a curved trajectory from the eastern horizon to the western horizon. This trajectory goes from Southeast to Southwest in the winter, a fairly short arc never getting very high above the southern horizon, and from Northeast through the zenith to Northwest in the summer, a much longer arc. It travels at the same apparent speed at either solstice, but travels a much longer arc in midsummer, so takes a significantly longer time.

Interesting question!

Answer 3

If the rabbit is sitting in his chair for the full 24 hours, he would not only notice that there is less daylight but it would also notice an increase in the length of darkness.

Many animals base their patterns on this such as bear and deer.

I don't believe that an animal can grasp concepts such as the speed of the Sun so my view is that the rabbit observes that the Sun is simply in the sky for less time.

Answer 4

Well both, they go hand in hand, if something goes faster than naturally it is there less time. It moves faster, the horizon doesn't shrink in the winter.
i hope that helps