Physics · Glossary

What is Day and night?

Also known as: daytime · night · sunrise · sunset

Definition 4.2 Primary & Middle School Physics · Chapter 4 — Day and Night: The Sun

Daytime is the part of the day when the Sun is up in our sky, giving us light. Night is the part when the Sun is gone from our sky and the world around us goes dark. The moment the Sun appears is the sunrise; the moment it disappears is the sunset.

Examples

Example 4.4 (The rhythm repeats)

Morning, midday, evening, night — and then morning again. The rhythm has never skipped once: after every night, a day; after every day, a night. A whole turn of this wheel, one day and one night together, is what the calendar counts: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, each is one turn of the wheel.

Example 4.5 (The spinning Earth)

The Earth — the huge ball we all live on — spins slowly, like a merry-go-round, and we spin with it. When our side of the ball faces the Sun, we have daytime. As the Earth keeps turning, our side slides away from the sunlight into the dark: evening comes, then night. Keep turning, and our side swings back into the light: sunrise! The Sun only seems to travel across our sky — the real traveler is the ground under our feet.

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