The Earth´s Role in the Universe

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Interactions that take place on planet Earth are an ever-changing effect of the Earth’s role in the universe. Interactions stem from many factors, including the Earth’s position in relation to the sun, the axis of the Earth, and that of forces on Earth itself, such as gravity and position. One major interaction that affects everyone and everything on the planet is time. Throughout history, people have experimented with timekeeping in efforts to develop the best system. Through countless trials, the system we use today was developed. In it, time zones were established corresponding to different locations on the Earth. Scientists discovered that different times of year, when the Earth’s position is in different relations to the sun, the weather in the area can be affected, causing seasons. Although spanning worldwide and originating under different circumstances, latitude, longitude, time zones, and seasons are all interrelated through interactions between the Sun and the Earth.
A season is defined as a period of the year that is characterized by changes in weather and daylight, resulting from the interaction of the Earth’s yearly orbit around the sun and the tilt of the Earth’s axis (Khavrus & Shelevytsky, 2012). The Earth completes one revolution around the sun every 365 days, or 1 year as most people refer to. During this revolution, different areas of the Earth are pointed toward the sun, creating different seasons (see figure 1). This results in “changes in the amount of solar radiation an area receives” which affects the climate of weather of different regions on the Earth (Biggs, 2003, p. 484). The most well-known seasons, and seen most often in temperate regions of the world, include summer and winter, with spring and fall...

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Works Cited

Adler, D. A. (2010). Time zones. New York: Holiday House.
Biggs, A. (2003). Climate. In Glencoe science (pp. 474-505). New York, NY: Glencoe McGraw-Hill.
Formichelli, L., & Martin, W. E. (2012). Timekeeping. White River Junction, VT: Nomad Press.
Khavrus, V., & Shelevytsky, I. (2012). Geometry and the physics of the sun. Physics Education, 47(6), 680-692. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0031-9120/47/6/680
Moore, P. (Ed.). (2002). Astronomy encyclopedia (Fully rev. and expanded ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Stern, D. P. (n.d.). Latitude and longitude history. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from http://irem-fpb.univ-lyon1.fr/feuillesprobleme/feuille7/eratosthene/latitude_longitude.pdf
A walk through time: World time scales. (2009, August 12). Retrieved May 3, 2014, from http://www.nist.gov/pml/general/time/world.cfm

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