3 ms·

I don't know off hand what this cliche wave is called(shown in like all SciFi space launch movies) the wider top part of the wave that's the Earth tilted in tha

• cosmic_quanta 7y ago
  It is described in the page's About section (https://sunlight.live/about.html https://sunlight.live/about.html). It is called a terminator.
• TeMPOraL 7y ago
  You mean the terminator? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_(solar) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_(solar)
  • ge96 7y ago
    great name haha, I was not aware of this
• tpaschalis 7y ago
  As cosmic_quanta mentioned it's called the terminator, and it's generally the dividing line between the 'illuminated' and 'unilluminated' part of a celestial body. You're right, the weird shape is due to the projection of "earth" in the X-Y plane, if you chose a different projection it would appear differently. The calculations make sure that the result is ±1 accurate all year long. The truth is that even the definition of 'daylight' and 'night-time' is not straightforward. The most common definitions include the Civil, Nautical and Astronomical Twilights [1], depending on the sun's position, so it should actually be a gradient. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight
  • ge96 7y ago
    thanks for the info, I just see that squiggly line all over that 'sine wave' looking thing on space-related scenes on a big screen.