A little spin.
A brand-new day.
Hello, Nina! Let’s find out why the Sun seems to say hello… and goodbye.
Turn Earth until the Sun peeks into her garden.
Tap a planet or its name to discover a fact • Sizes and distances are not to scale
Give Earth a little twirl
Slide the paper tab to turn our home.
Find Nina’s sunrise
Turn Earth until the Sun peeks into her garden.
Take your time. You can try as many times as you like.
Nina: Let’s play!Sunshine at Nina’s house
Nina can play outside. Her part of Earth faces the Sun.
Earth: day meets night
Real astronaut photographs of sunlight and shadow on our home. Find where day turns into night.
Where day meets night
The bright part faces the Sun. The dark part faces away. As Earth turns, our home moves between day and night.
Astronaut photographTaken by the Artemis II crew on April 2, 2026. The boundary between day and night is called the terminator. This is not an eclipse.Image credit: NASA / Artemis II crew · View originalEarth spins once in about 24 hours. The side facing the Sun has daytime. The side facing away has nighttime. It spins around an axis tilted about 23.4°; that axis keeps pointing the same way through the year.