What causes the four seasons to change?
Earth's Stubborn Lean
What causes the four seasons to change?
Here's a question that sounds easy until you try to answer it: why does the year keep changing its outfit? Spring's flowers, summer's heat, autumn's gold, winter's frost — round and round, every single year. You might guess the Earth swings closer to the Sun in summer and runs away in winter. Reasonable guess! Also wrong. The real answer is sneakier, and it's hiding in the way our planet leans.
First, let's kill the popular myth. Earth's orbit isn't a perfect circle — it's a slightly squashed loop — but the distance barely changes. Funny twist: Earth is actually closest to the Sun in early January, smack in the middle of Northern winter. So "closer equals warmer" can't be the secret. Distance isn't the boss of the seasons.
