>>13364926The north/south part is the basic bit where you are tilted toward / away from the sun increasing / decreasing the amount of sun you get each day
The east to west movement is to do with the earths orbit being eccentric, meaning its not a perfect circle so it has differing speeds at different parts of the orbit
This is a lot easier with some visual aids so i attached an image to this post
The short story is 24 hours is the average of a rotation of the earth plus a bit extra because the earth has moved round the sun during that day, for each degree of orbit you need about 4 degrees extra rotation to face the sun again
https://thecuriousastronomer.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/sidereal-v-solar-day.jpg24 hours in a day is an average of the 360 degree rotation + the extra bit because of the orbit
During the part of the year that the earth is orbiting faster the earth has to rotate more than one extra degree per day to face the sun again (24 hours is too short)
During the part of the year the earth is orbiting slower it has to rotate less than one degree extra to face the sun again (24 hours is too long)
This satisfied my own internal "makes sense" check, coupled with the physical verification being easy to replicate gives me satisfaction that earth is in fact a sphere
