​What Patterns Can Be Observed in a Year?

​The illustration represents the relative positions of Earth, its moon, and the sun at a given time. The scale of this image, like many other diagrams of the solar system, is inaccurate. Although the Earth appears to be about ten times bigger than the moon and sun, in fact the noon's diameter is about one quarter the size of Earth's diameter and the sun's diameter is 100 times greater than Earth's diameter.

Lesson Objective...

By the end of this lesson...

​I will be able to describe monthly and seasonal patterns of the sun, moon, and stars.

Vocabulary for this Lesson

Orbit - the path of one object in space around another

​Revolution - the movement of Earth one time around the sun

Can You Explain It?

Max walks his dog at 9:00 each night of the year. He looks up at the night sky and tries to identify the constellations-groups of stars that form patterns in the sky. The image on the left shows Max's view of the night sky on January at 9:00 pm. The image on the right shows his view of the night sky in July at 9:00 pm.

​Question:

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​Can you use constellations to tell what season it is?

​Watch Video 1

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Round and Round

Each year, Earth makes one complete orbit around the sun.

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All the planets orbit the sun, and all the moons orbit their planets.

​Watch Video 2

Round and Round

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After this video, were your predictions from the last question accurate?