Why does the SUN rise in the East and set in the West?

[AviatorTom]

Beautiful sunrise, looking East

Why does the sun move East to West and not something else, like South to North?

[NostalgiaSenpi]

Currently, Earth's axis is tilted about 23.5 degrees from the plane of its orbit around the sun. It makes one complete turn every 24 hours. It turns toward the east, and looks like the sun is moving west. The Earth’s orbit is slightly elliptical around the sun, so those two combined makd the position change throughout the year and gives the seasons.

Mercury, Venus, and Uranus have unique orbits.

Venus is either upside-down or backwards, the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east.

Uranus has its axis of spin pointing towards the sun and rotates backwards.

[OlderAndWiser]

Because the Earth rotates counterclockwise on an axis that runs fairly north-south.

[Amy10223]

Because of the rotation of the earth, which is from left to right.

[Amy10223]

I meant to say, the sun is stationary. It's the earth that turns; the sun doesn't rise.

[purplepoppy]

Because the earth spins on an axis

[AviatorTom]

Agreed, but why East go West, sounds pretty arbitrary.

[purplepoppy]

The thing about planets is their pretty big and heavy. Once they start spinning its hard to get them to change. Most spin the same way and you've really got to whack them to change it.

[WindAtMyBack]

I'm guessing the gravitational pull of the sun as the Earth revolves around it. If you stand inside a big vertical cylinder and throw a ball clockwise along the wall, the ball will rotate counterclockwise. I think the pull of the sun will do the same thing. So the Earth is essentially rolling around the sun.

[FunkyMonkee]

It doesn't. It stays in one place, it's the Earth that moves, rotates on its axis, in the direction that makes it LOOK like the sun comes up in the east and set in the west! If the axis changed drastically, it might look like it's rising in the south and setting in the north or even that it's rising in the west and setting in the east!

[AnusNdaPainus]

Because it’s better for movies

[AviatorTom]

Excellent point. Riding off into the sunset at the end of the Western would be different, wouldn't it?

[Anonymous]

We see the sunrise and sunset because of Earth's rotation about its own axis. Earth is rotating about its own axis from West to East. So, when seen from the Earth, the Sun appears to rise in the East and set in the West.

[AviatorTom]

But the Earth is tilted on its axis, so shouldn't it be something other than East to West?

[PatriceONeal]

Becuase the earth spins, and it spins counterclockwise. Same explanation for the direction of trade winds going west (left to right, as the earth spins right to left)

One day in our distand future, earth will be tidally locked like our moon is to us and we won't have sunrises or sunsets anymore.

[lightbulb27]

and why does it spin counter clockwise...

[PatriceONeal]

@lightbulb27 the majority of planets in the milkyway galaxy spin counterclockwise because the presumed super-massive blackhole at the center of our galaxy is spinning that same direction.

[lightbulb27]

why's that black hole spinning that way. lol, I'm just being a 1st grader... I have no idea..:)

[PatriceONeal]

@lightbulb27 That's a good question, I don't have a clue on that one. Keep that curiosity, it will take you quite far.

[lightbulb27]

haha, thanks, all power to the 2yr olds! Somehow... when the big bang occurred, when absolute nothing created absolutely everything, which continues to expand from an unknown source (making stuff out of more nothing) into apparently infinite everything, then some of it started to spin due to a pull from some larger something that 's so strong, it sucks a bunch of stuff into nothing again.
something like that... but I know it's wrong...

I definitely don't understand this "universe" let alone any of the others.

[PatriceONeal]

@lightbulb27 if there were infinite universes you can be sure we would have been visited by now.

[Astarlessnightsky]

because thats the way earth rotates and how we named the directions

[qwert1234]

It's a bug, sorry. We'll fix it on Solar System 2.0.

[exitseven]

the earth rotates on it's axis in a clockwise direction.

[Anonymous]

because of the way the earth revolves around the sun and because the earth is tilted on an axis giving different seasons and temperatures during different seasons

[Likes2drive]

Because of the direction the earth spins

[clampfan101]

That’s one of the key basics of astronomy.

[clampfan101]

Yes, Earth’s axis isn’t precise. But it’s off by so little that it hardly makes a difference.

[Tiffanytrans]

Because the sun is racist.

[LovingJo]

Great question 👍