Saturday, May 24, 2014

Wondering About Sun Rises.

I got wondering about sunrises and how long it takes the disc of the sun to move the distance from the moment it first appears until the lower part of the disc clears the horizon.  Then I wondered about the same thing only on different planets.  Well, I figure that depends on a lot of things.  The thing that influences the speed of the sunrise the most would be the speed that the planet rotates and the distance from the sun.  Why distance?  Well, the further away from the sun, the smaller the sun appears.  The speed of rotation is self explanatory.

I will list the average times for sunrises at the equator of each planet.  But before I do, stop and try to guess for yourselves.  I will start with Earth, because we are most familiar with our own planet.  The average at the equator would be 2.13 minutes.  Since Pluto is now not considered a major planet, I will tell you that its sunrise lasts 20.6 seconds.  Yep, Pluto is way, way out there and the sun would appear very small compared to the way we see it.  This should give you a hint to the answer.

OK, here are the answers:
  Mercury     -     16.13 hours
  Venus         -      5.73 hours
   Earth         -       2.13 minutes
   Mars          -       1.44 minutes
   Jupiter       -      10.15 seconds
   Saturn        -       5.92 seconds
   Uranus       -       4.78 seconds
   Neptune     -       2.85 seconds

I will leave you with some sunrise pictures to ponder on.  Oh, by the way, these are sunrises on our own Earth:




You all have a great day and always enjoy the beauty and wonder of our home planet and its sun and moon, you hear?

4 comments:

  1. I'm surprised that sunrise on Venus lasts so much longer than ours.

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    1. Venus is a lot closer to the sun so it would appear much larger in the sky and maybe Venus rotates on its axis a little bit faster. I don't know if it does or not, but being closer to the sun would be the biggest thing.

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  2. Happy belated Birthday, Mrs. DD ! I only missed it by one sunrise, not bad for an old coot like me who don't know what day the sun is rising on.

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    1. That's OK, I have no idea, either. That is one good thing about writing a blog, the day is always shown at the top of the page, but I forget to look most of he time.

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