Explain Like I'm Five · by Lukas Huber · 2026-11-04

ELI5: why does the weather get colder even though the sun is still out all day?

It's sunny here but freezing, and my kid asked why the sun 'isn't working anymore'. I know it's something about the tilt of the Earth, but I couldn't explain why tilt makes such a big difference when the sun is the same sun. How would you explain this to an actual five-year-old?

20 sparks · 4 comments

Comments

Rapid Otter · 3 likes

shine a torch straight down on a table, small bright circle. now tilt it, the light spreads out and gets weaker. in winter the sunlight is the tilted torch

Rizky Pratama · 2 likes

stealing this, doing it tonight

Youssef Mahmoud · 1 likes

also the days are shorter so there's less time to warm stuff up and longer nights to lose it again

Kabir Khan · 0 likes

tell them the sun is on a budget for winter. technically wrong but it worked on mine