PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Even though days are still
getting shorter, sunsets are getting later. The optimists among
us believe that the long inexorable march toward spring has
begun. A number of factors contribute to the phenomenon says
Paul Howell who is studying for his PhD in Astrophysics at
Boston University. Among those are earth's slightly elliptical
orbit and the fact that the earth doesn't revolve in exactly
twenty-four hours. "When our hemisphere is tilted toward the
sun, the days are longer. If you leave you oven on for a longer
period of time, things get hotter and hotter," Howell told News
Center. "The sun is also higher up in the sky, so it beats down
on the ground more directly and that gives more energy to the
earth. We have more heating and the heating is more effective."
Another fact is that the earth is orbiting the sun as it
revolves. It needs to make slightly more than one revolution to
exactly face the sun once again because it has moved along its
orbital track. This change of loc