Is it possible for the sun to rise west to east??

[TahaSiddiqui]

Lol, just wondering if the sun could rise from west to east on earth ;o.

 

[BoJangles]

Sure it could. We could be side swiped by a planet or something, either way im&nbsp;not sure you'd want to be arround when it happened. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p align="center"><font color="#808080">-------------- </font></p><p align="center"><font size="1" color="#808080"><em>Let me start out with the standard disclaimer ... I am an idiot, I know almost nothing, I haven’t taken calculus, I don’t work for NASA, and I am one-quarter Bulgarian sheep dog.  With that out of the way, I have several stupid questions... </em></font></p><p align="center"><font size="1" color="#808080"><em>*** A few months blogging can save a few hours in research ***</em></font></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>Sure it could. We could be side swiped by a planet or something, either way im&nbsp;not sure you'd want to be arround when it happened. <br />Posted by BoJangles</DIV><br /><br />I doubt even that would work. In any case, should that happen, there will be no one around to see it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[Smersh]

<p>Supposing you were the pilot of an SR-71 Blackbird or something, then took off at say, midnight local time heading due west at Mach 3. In a few hours you'd see the sun rise in the west wouldn't you? (Providing you didn't run out of fuel of course ...)</p><p><img src="http://sitelife.space.com/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-laughing.gif" border="0" alt="Laughing" title="Laughing" />&nbsp;</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <h1 style="margin:0pt;font-size:12px">----------------------------------------------------- </h1><p><font color="#800000"><em>Lady Nancy Astor: "Winston, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea."<br />Churchill: "Nancy, if you were my wife, I'd drink it."</em></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Website / forums </strong></font></p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>Lol, just wondering if the sun could rise from west to east on earth ;o. <br /> Posted by TahaSiddiqui</DIV></p><p>Barring a (possibly literally) earth-shattering calamity (or the aforementioned SR-71 or similar very fast transport), it can't happen on Earth.&nbsp; But it <em>can</em> happen on other worlds.</p><p>All you need is a planet that rotates retrograde (backwards).&nbsp; Venus is one such world.&nbsp; If you could see through the smog and clouds, you'd see the sun rise in the west.&nbsp; 243 Earth days later, you'd see it set in the east.</p><p>There are stranger worlds in terms of rotational oddities.&nbsp; Mercury is prograde, but because it is so close to the Sun, and because of the relatively high eccentricity of its orbit, the Sun would appear to grow and shrink, and even occasionally reverse direction in the sky.</p><p>Uranus and Pluto both have extreme tilts to their rotational axes.&nbsp; In the case of Uranus, it's just over 90 degrees, so there are long periods for each hemisphere when the Sun doesn't rise at all. </p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>