However, this is true for everybody who lives on the equator! On a regular meridian near the equator, the sun should rise at 6:00 a.m. and set at 6:00 p.m., but it rises at 6:03 a.m. in July, a summer month, and rises late at 6:11 a.m. in February, a winter month. The reason is simple: You are two minutes early because of the rotation of the earth! The equator is a great circle on Earth that divides the globe into two equal parts, each of which revolves about its axis once per day. At the equator, there is no north or south; instead, all points on the equator are at the same distance from the center of the earth. For this reason, the term "equatorial" means "equal to the equator." The earth's axis is not exactly perpendicular to its surface, but is tilted by an angle called the latitude of the location on the earth's surface. Longitude is measured along a line from pole to pole, so the farther a location is from the poles, the more west it is from Greenwich, England, where longitude is zero degrees. Locations nearer the poles are further east than Greenwich. As the earth rotates daily, one quarter of its circumference is covered by the morning sun and another quarter by the evening sun.