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The way time works on Earth, comes from how the planet moves through space. Earth has two main types of movement:

• Rotation: Earth spins like a top on an invisible pole called an axis that runs straight through its center from top to bottom. One full spin takes approximately 24 hours, giving us day and night.
• Revolution: While it spins, Earth is also traveling in a large, mostly circular path around the Sun. This path is called an orbit.

What Makes a Year?

A year is measured by the amount of time it takes a planet to orbit completely around its star. It takes Earth approximately 365 days to complete one full revolution around the Sun. Every time Earth finishes one trip around the Sun, one Earth year has passed.

Summer and Winter

Many people guess that summer happens when Earth is closer to the Sun and winter happens when it is farther away. That isn’t exactly true. The real reason for the seasons is Earth’s tilt. Earth’s axis does not stand up perfectly straight. It leans slightly to one side.

As Earth makes its 365-day orbit around the Sun, that tilted axis always points in the exact same direction. Because of this, different parts of the world get different amounts of direct sunlight throughout the year.

Summer happens when the northern half of Earth (the Northern Hemisphere) is leaning toward the Sun, the Sun’s rays hit it more directly. This brings more heat and light, creating summer.

Months later, when Earth has traveled to the other side of the Sun, the northern half is leaning away from the Sun. The sunlight is less direct, making it colder and bringing winter.

Because the top and bottom halves of the planet are on opposite ends of the axis, they experience opposite seasons. When it is summer in the north, it is winter in the south.

Spring and Fall

During Earth’s 365-day trip around the Sun, it reaches the halfway points between the extreme hot and cold seasons. During spring and fall, Earth’s tilted axis is leaning sideways compared to the Sun. At that point, it is not pointing toward or away from the sun.

Because of this sideways position, the Sun’s light hits both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres equally. This creates a special event called an equinox. The word equinox means “equal night”. During the first days of spring and fall, the amount of daytime and the amount of nighttime are almost exactly equal everywhere on the planet. There is about 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark.

Because the sunlight is spread evenly during these times, rather than hitting one half of the planet directly, the weather is milder. The temperatures are right in the middle, either warming up from winter (giving us spring) or cooling down from summer (giving us fall).

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