"Stunning Animation Reveals Earth's Tilt and Solstices in Motion"

A new video released by Simon Proud, an Earth-observation scientist at the National Center for Earth Observation in the U.K., shows how Earth's tilt changes throughout the year, causing days to lengthen and shorten from north to south as the planet orbits the sun. The video is a sequence of images taken by the European weather satellite Meteosat, which observes the planet from its perch in the geostationary orbit, an orbit at an altitude of 22,200 miles (36,000 kilometers), where spacecraft appear suspended above a fixed spot above Earth's equator. The planet is now beginning its move toward the autumn equinox, which takes place in September and which sees both hemispheres receiving an equal amount of sunshine on that given day.