To understand how the “wobble” of the 26,000-year-precession cycle has no noticeable effect on the Sun’s rise and set points, imagine the celestial sphere of stars that surrounds us.

Earth floats in the center of this sphere so that its spin axis aligns with the North and South Celestial Poles. Earth’s equator, projected onto the sphere, becomes the celestial equator ...

After the war against the Olympian gods, Zeus condemned him to hold up the vault of the sky (or celestial sphere) on his shoulders for all eternity. Herodotus claimed that Atlas (also known as Atlante ...