Day and night are caused by the Earth's rotation on its axis. Daytime is when the side of the Earth faces the sun, while nighttime is when the side faces away. While you don't feel it, Earth is spinning. Once every 24 hours Earth turns — or rotates on its axis — taking all of us with it. When we are on the side of Earth that is facing the Sun, we have daylight. As Earth continues its spin, we are moved to the side facing away from our Sun, and we have nighttime. If we were looking down on Earth from above the north pole, we could see that Earth rotates counterclockwise, and we would watch daylight and darkness sweeping across our globe from east to west.