Question: Why is the sun always in the Artic in summer?

Kate Salmon answered on 18 Mar 2014:

Hi @pinkster- it is always sunny in the Arctic during the summer because of how the Earth is angled towards the sun. So the seasons are caused because of the way the earth is tilted on its axis. During the Northern hemisphere summer, the northern hemisphere (e.g. Europe, N. America, Russia, Arctic) is tilted towards the sun and during the winter, the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun.
The Arctic is right at the top of the globe where the earth has a smaller circumference compared to the tropics near the equator which have a larger circumference. On top of this, the earth is also spinning on its axis so we get night when we are facing away from the sun and day when we are facing towards the sun. The length of days change depending where on the globe you are.

The fact that the Arctic is spinning on a smaller circumference than the tropics means it is angled towards the sun almost all of the time when it is spinning on a daily cycle, which is why you get a midnight sun in summer. However, this does mean that the opposite happens in the winter so you get long months of darkness with no sunlight at all! But during winter when there is no sun to interfere, you get to see the Northern Lights which are beautiful coloured streaks across the sky caused by the interaction between earths magnetic field and particles from the sun.