capturing Sunset at Triplicane

People travel miles and spend thousands to see Sunset – a beautiful spectre.  As we know, the  Sun, the Moon, the planets, and the stars all rise in the East and set in the West. That is  because Earth spins -- toward the east.

 

According to Science data, Sunset typically occurs around 6:19 pm at Triplicane Chennai, with the sun setting in the west.  The daylight time  in Chennai is from 6:15 am to 6:18 pm.

 

Sunset (or sundown) is the disappearance of the Sun at the end of the Sun path, below the horizon of the Earth (or any other astronomical object in the Solar System) due to its rotation. As viewed from everywhere on Earth, it is a phenomenon that happens approximately once every 24 hours, except in areas close to the poles. The equinox Sun sets due west at the moment of both the spring and autumn equinoxes.   

The sunset is defined in astronomy the moment the upper limb of the Sun disappears below the horizon. Near the horizon, atmospheric refraction causes sunlight rays to be distorted to such an extent that geometrically the solar disk is already about one diameter below the horizon when a sunset is observed.

 

Sun "rises in the east and sets in the west" is what we have read and understood. However, most people don't realize that is a generalization. Actually, the Sun only rises due east and sets due west on 2 days of the year -- the spring and fall equinoxes! On other days, the Sun rises either north or south of "due east" and sets north or south of "due west. Each day the rising and setting points change slightly. At the summer solstice, the Sun rises as far to the northeast as it ever does, and sets as far to the northwest. Every day after that, the Sun rises a tiny bit further south.  

Away, Nasa recently  released the first high-definition images of a sunset on the Moon, two striking photographs taken by the private lander Blue Ghost that could offer scientists further clues to the mysterious phenomenon known as lunar horizon glow. The agency presented the images to a press conference  at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, marking the conclusion of a 14-day mission conducted in partnership with Texas company Firefly Aerospace. The commercial lander, which touched down on 2 March near Mons Latreille, a volcanic formation in Mare Crisium on the moon’s north-eastern near side, is part of a $2.6bn investment by Nasa in commercial payload operators aiming to cut costs and support Artemis, the program scheduled to return humans to the moon in 2027.  

 Sunset on the Moon - NASA image

Lunar horizon glow was first documented by the astronaut Eugene Cernan, one of the last two men to set foot on the moon during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Subsequent observations concluded that the phenomenon was due to tiny dust particles in the moon’s thin atmosphere glowing at lunar sunrise and sunset, while some theories suggest the particles levitated. Blue Ghost also captured high-definition imagery of a total eclipse on 14 March, when the Earth blocked the sun from the moon’s horizon.

 

A SpaceX Falcon rocket launched the lander, which is about the size of a hippopotamus, on a 2.8m-mile journey on 15 January. Blue Ghost was carrying an array of scientific experiments, including a lunar soil analyzer, a radiation-tolerant computer and an experiment testing the feasibility of using the existing global satellite navigation system to navigate the moon.

 

Interesting !  ~ first three pics are  of Sunset at Triplicane captured by me today.

 

Regards – S Sampathkumar

25.3.2025