Sunrise at Myrtle Beach. (Photo by Susan McBrayer)
By Elliott Brack,
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
NOV. 1, 2024 | The earth rotates around the sun ever so slowly, but in reality to mankind, it moves pretty fast.
That’s the conclusion we got all of a sudden recently. We were resting in a chair in our den, after our morning dog walk. We were possibly nodding, when to our surprise, we felt direct heat on our face.
Opening our eyes, it was the morning sun, shining through a pane of glass in our kitchen, directly hitting us in the eye. It was in the lower left part of the right pane of a kitchen window, and so bright that we could not look directly at the sun. The time was about 8:35 a.m.
That set us to thinking. We have been interested in the trajectory of the sun in our neighborhood for several years. One morning quite a few years back, we were up again walking with another dog. It was June 21, right at 6 a.m. on that date, and the sun came up and was shining directly down our street. The summer equinox is the time when the sun arises in its most northeastern location at about 75 degrees. And it’s also the longest day of the year, as the sun starts on its orbit toward the west, traveling on that long day to about 210 degrees northwest.
We are aware of when the sun sets, for when we are at our computer terminal at about 8:35 p.m. on those long June nights, the sun is again in our eyes from the West.
And for sure, if you can count on one element in the universe, the sun will make that path year in and year out. It is dependable.
Now back to sitting in that chair. Remember, there was bright sunshine shining directly into my eye. And as I pondered, I realized that the sun was ever so slowly rising in a top right direction on that pane. That’s when I checked the time. Very slowly, it kept rising, and at about two minutes, some tall tree limbs and leaves mottled the brightness. Meanwhile, the sun continued to move upward, past the leaves, and again the sun was bright again, about midway along the pane. The clock showed it was by now 8:38.
In the next two minutes, it was in the top right corner of the pane, with about half the sun shining in my eyes. And in another minute, it disappeared from the topmost pane entirely.
No longer was the sun shining into my eye.
That same morning an email from one of our regular readers, Susan McBrayer of Sugar Hill sent a photograph, showing the sun rising over the ocean in Myrtle Beach, S.C. I wrote an email back to her, mentioning the sun shining through the pane into my eye.
Her reply: “ I was thinking something similar this morning as I was watching the sun come up. It all happened in – I don’t know – five minutes? First the sky was a coral rose color, and then the sun started peeking up and, within no time, it was completely up.
“I thought, how can that be when I’m standing still? Nothing seems to be moving. An interesting contemplation.”
So we say to you: try it yourself. Pick out a fixed point, and watch the sun move for about five minutes. Its orbit takes 24 hours, and it seems to move slowly, but for sure, it is constant and moving faster than you think.
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