Key Concepts:)
Information to remember
● Rotation: spinning in motion
● Revolution: moving around (orbiting) an object
● Rate of rotation: 15°per hour (or 360°per day)
● Period of rotation: 24 hours (1 day)
● Period of revolution: 365.25 days (1 year)
● Insolation: The energy from the sun that reaches the
Earth (rays of sunlight)
● Precession causes earth’s axis to wobble like a top
Earth's rotation/revolution
● If earth rotated faster, the length of the day would
decrease
● If the Earth rotated slower, the length of the day would
increase
● Gaspard Coriolis first described the behavior of
objects, moving in a rotating frame of reference
● The heliocentric theory requires Earth to rotate on its
axis, once every 24 hours
● In the northern hemisphere, winds curve to the right
● In the southern hemisphere, winds curve to the left
● Jean Foucault used an ingeniously simple method to
prove earth's rotation. Foucault knew that gravity pulls
a pendulum only towards Earth’s center.
● Earth's axis, an imaginary line from the North to the
South Pole, is tilted at an angle of 23.5° which causes
the changing of seasons and variations in daylight.
● As earth revolves around the sun, the side of earth,
facing the sun, experiences day, and the side facing
away experiences night
● Earth revolves around the sun counterclockwise one
time each year
The different views used
● Heliocentric Model: the sun is in the center of the solar
system, and all the planets around it, revolve around it.
● Geocentric Model: the earth is in the center this is a old
belief that had complex explanations
Proof of Earth's Rotation
● The changing constellations prove Earth’s revolution
around the sun.
● Diagrams help us understand the positions of the noon
Sun with seasons.
● Diagrams also help us understand the length of
daylight throughout the year with some changes
depending on your location from Earth
How we know Earth's shape
● Stars appear to change positions as and observer
moves North or South
● We can see Earth’s curved shadow when moon is
eclipse
● As an object moves away it seems to sink since of the
curve of Earth's surface
Proof of Planets movement
● As the moon orbits Earth, positions change which
change the phase of the moon (Examples- Full moon,
New moon, Crescents)
The sun’s Path
● The sun's apparent path through the sky from sunrise
to sunset is an arc, like the paths of all other celestial
objects
● The length and position of the sun's path vary with the
seasons and latitude
● Sunlight that reaches earth's surface is called
Insolation, short for incoming solar radiation
● Sunlight strikes, earth's surface, or angle of insolation;
The closer to perpendicular the angle of insolation, the
greater the intensity of insolation, which means it
warms earth’s surface
● On June 21, the altitude of the sun at noon stops
increasing. Therefore this date is called the summer
solstice meaning summer “sun stop”
● On December 21 the altitude of the sun at noon stops
decreasing. Therefore this date is called the winter
solstice, meaning winter “sun stop”
What Earth, Sun and Moon create
● Gravitational pull of Moon and Sun influence tides,
when they are aligned we have strong tides and when
they are right angles(90) there are weak tides
● Moon phases are also created (About it is on proof of
planet’s movement)
● As earth revolves around the sun, the moon circles
earth in an elliptical orbit, with a period of 27.32 days
● The moon does not produce visible light of its own, The
moon is visible only because the light from the sun is
reflected from its surface.
● A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly
between earth and the sun
● The umbra is a region of shadow, in which all of the
light has been blocked
● In the penumbra only part of the light is blocked so the
light is dim but not totally absent
● The path of the moons Ambra, over earth's surface is
therefore called the path of totality
● In an annular eclipse the moon is too far from the
Earth, to completely block our view of the sun
● A lunar eclipse occurs when the full moon moves
through earth's shadow