earth, moon and the sun

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Earth, Moon and the Sun

Phases of the Moon

Eclipses

Tides

Motions of the Earth

Moon Differences & Space Visits

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½ of Earth and moon are always in sunlight

Earth

The moon would look like this to someone on earth:

Sunlight

Sunlight

Sunlight

SUN

SUN

Moon

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Earth

Because the moon revolves around Earth, it looks different each night

MoonMoon

Moon

Moon

Moon

Moon

Moon

Moon

Sunlight

Sunlight

Sunlight

SUN

Keep clicking here to

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What the moon looks like from earth:

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If the moon is less than ½ full,

it’s called a crescent moon.

If the moon is more than ½ full,

it’s called a gibbous moon.

If you can see the right side of the

moon, it’s waxing (getting bigger). If you can see the left side of the moon,

it’s waning (getting smaller).

There are 2 ways we describe a moon phase:1) How full is it? 2) Is it growing or shrinking?

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Some names of moon phases

New moon

Waxing crescent

1st quarter

3rd quarter

Waning crescent

Full moon

Waxing gibbous

Waning gibbous

Crescent: less than ½ fullGibbous: more than ½ fullWaxing: getting biggerWaning: getting smaller

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Can you put these moon phases in the correct order?

A

B

C

D

E

F G

H

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Can you put these moon phases in the correct order?

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O

N

K

P

J

L

Q

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That’s the endof this section.

Click here to go home

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Our Earth has 2 types of motion:

North Pole

Earth moves around the sun (this is called revolution)

Earth spins on its axis(this is called rotation)

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Earth orbits the sun.

In the time it takes Earth to do 1 revolution around the sun, the moon has done about 12 revolutions around Earth. We have 12 moonths in 1 year.

And the moon orbits Earth.

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It looks like the sun moves around Earth, causing day and night

Keep clicking here to see another day

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Every 24 hours, Earth does 1 rotation

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North Pole

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Day and night is caused by Earth’s rotation

SUN

Spacebar: start & freeze

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It looks like the sun moves across the sky – but the Earth is spinning

– the sun is still!

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Sunlight

Sunlight

Sunlight

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Sunlight

Sunlight

Sunlight

SUN

Sunrise

Noon

Sunset

Day and night is caused by Earth’s rotation

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Midnight

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The difference between night and day

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½ of the Earth and moon are always in sunlight

Earth

The moon would look like this to someone on earth:

Sunlight

Sunlight

Sunlight

SUN

SUN

Moon



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Because the sun is 400 times

larger than the moon…

MoonSun

Click here to see a 6 minute video of a Total Solar Eclipse (in Turkey, 2006)

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… and the moon is

400 times closer

than the sun…

MoonSun

… the moon looks the same size as the sun to everyone on Earth

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The moon’s orbit is slanted

compared to Earth’s orbit

Sun

Earth

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Because the moon’s orbit is slanted compared to Earth’s orbit, the moon rarely passes exactly

between Earth and the sun

Sun

Be patient, my little

house friend

Think they’ll cross?

Whew! That was close!

Well actually, when the moon passes near the sun, you cannot see the moon because we are seeing the moon’s dark side. However, let’s continue to pretend you were able to see the moon during the day…

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When the moon blocks out the sun, we have a solar eclipse

Yes – very cool

Cool!

S M E

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When the moon blocks out the sun, we have a solar eclipse

I’m a tree!

I can see!

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Total solar eclipse

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In an annular solar eclipse – moon only blocks middle of sun because the moon is a little further away from Earth

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Planets between Earth and the sun (Mercury and Venus) can cause mini-eclipses, called transits.

Transit of Venus – June 8, 2004

S V E

Venus

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When the Earth blocks out the moon, we have a lunar eclipse

It’s because some light from the sun

deflects off the Earth’s

atmosphere and hits the moon.

Why does the moon look red

instead of being completely

blocked out?Can you see Earth’s shadow block out stars?

S ME

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Partial lunar eclipse

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Mr. Ligon took this photo from his

house during the Total Lunar Eclipse of

February 20, 2008

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A zoom-in on the previous photo

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Sun

Moon

Earth

Can you move the moon to create a solar eclipse? A lunar eclipse?

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The blue lines on this map show the paths of all the total solar eclipses from 1951 to 2000

homehttp://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEmap/SEmapNA/SEmapNA.html

The blue lines on this map show the paths of all the total solar eclipses from 2001 to 2050



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Tide video links

• Tides coming in/out 1

• Tides coming in/out 2

• Mystery of Tides

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The moon’s gravity pulls Earth’s water toward the moon

Moon

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Because Earth rotates, the same spot on earth has 2 high tides and 2 low tides about every 24 hours

Moon

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Make high tide

Make low tide

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The French castle Mont Saint Michel is sometimes an island



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High tide and low tide, at the same

place

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4 important differences between Earth and the moon

1. The moon is about as ¼ as wide as the earth

2. The moon is covered with craters

3. The moon has less gravity than the earth

4. The moon has no air (atmosphere) on it

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People first thought the dark, flat parts of the moon were oceans

Some people named these dark regions

maria – the Latin word for ocean. However,

these regions are really dried out lava beds.

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Many craters can be seen easily from earth

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Moon craters were caused by objects in space that crashed into the moon

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Moon craters come in all sizes

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The moon’s gravity only 1/6 as strong as the earth’s gravity

Earth Moon

Even if you jumped as hard as you could, you would not float

away from the moon. The moon has less gravity – not no

gravity. To escape the moon, you must go about 5000 m.p.h.

50 lbs300lbs

You would be able to lift 6 times as much weight on the moon

You would only weigh 1/6 as much

on the moon

Thanks to my diet, I now weigh only

180 lbs

Thanks to my diet, I now weigh only

30 lbs

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Remember that Galileo proved that all objects fall at the same speed if you ignore air resistance

Earth

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Because the moon has no air,there is no air resistance

Earth Moon

On the earth, the air slows down the falling feather. The bowling ball is too heavy to be

stopped by the air.

On the moon, there is no air to slow down the falling

feather. The feather falls as quickly as the bowling ball.

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Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on the moon

This is even

more fun than gym!

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This photograph was taken during

the first moon landing (1969) by astronaut Michael Collins – you can

see the moon below and the earth

in the distance

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The moon is a fun place to

play hide-and-seek!

97, 98, 99, 100. Ready or

not, here I come!

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Many countries are working together to build the International Space Station – which orbits Earth

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Dr. Mae Jemison

Eileen Collins

Chiaki Mukai

Kalpana Chawla Dr. Bernard Harris

Neil Armstrong

Col. Susan Helms

We’ve got room for 1 more

person – want to come?



7 astronauts who studied math and science

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M

V

Our Solar System

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J

S

U

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Sun

The closer a planet is to the sun, the faster it moves

Sometimes Pluto is closer to the sun than Neptune

earth, moon and the sun

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