Earth's orbit with obliquity

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Earth's Orbit with Obliquity - Animation of Earth over one full revolution around the Sun. A blue arrow showing the Earth's spin axis demonstrates the concept of obliquity. Also shown are significant lines of latitude on Earth, such as the equator, tropics of capricorn and cancer, and the arctic and antarctic circles. This animation helps to illustrate the effect of Earth's obliquity on the distribution of sunlight falling on different hemispheres of Earth over the course of one year (the cause of seasons).

Animations produced by PSI scientist Steve Kortenkamp.