Dayna Engslmann, age 10, of Houston, TX,

Why are there time belts?

Our big globe turns on its axis, always towards the east and a new view of the heavens is always coming up over the eastern horizon  The sun rises, climbs up the sky and sinks down in the west  This is because the spot of ground on which you lies has turned around to face the night time view of the heavens  It takes 24 hours for the each to swing clear around, giving you a complete day and night,

The people living further east get their heavenly views ahead of us  The sun rises and gets in New York hours before this happens in San Francisco  We have time belts across the country and around the world to adjust our clocks to the spinning earth.