• Question: if the earth really revolves around the the sunthe why we look at the sun we can see it plainly revoling around the earth???

    Asked by nicenadia to Alessandro, Angela, Claudia, Marina, Phil on 12 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Claudia Krehl

      Claudia Krehl answered on 12 Mar 2013:


      It all depends on our perspective. We often are tricked into something that is not actually true just by the way our senses work. For instance the Earth from the ground we stand on looks flat, when it actually isn’t.

      When we see the sun from the Earth a different illusion takes place. You know when you are sitting on a train in a station and you are looking at another train next to you and it starts moving. For a moment you are not sure if you are moving or the other train is. But you soon realise that you are not moving as there are no G-Forces that effect you. When you are standing on the Earth you cannot actually feel that it is moving even though you know it is. Therefore our body believes that we are in one place, but at the same time we can see the sun moving. So the first natural explanation would be that the sun moves around us not the other way around. Senses can play tricks on you!

    • Photo: Phillip Wilkinson

      Phillip Wilkinson answered on 12 Mar 2013:


      Another interesting point about optical illusions and the sun as that when the sun is setting, because light is refracted (bent in the atmosphere) it actually appears to still be in the sky when it has set already!

      Video explaining this -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvmq66op0G8

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