Wonders of the Night Sky
A giant ball of superheated hydrogen and helium.
What is: a star
Earth's natural satellite.
What is: the moon
Earth's spinning on its axis.
What is: rotation
The force that attracts objects toward each other.
What is: gravity
A streak of light caused by rock or ice burning in Earth's atmosphere.
What is: meteor
A large object that orbits the Sun and has cleared its path.
What is: a planet
The dark, flat, ancient lava plains on the Moon.
What is: Maria
Earth's trip around the Sun.
What is: a revolution
The amount of matter in an object.
What is: mass
An icy object that grows a glowing tail near the Sun.
What is: a comet
A pattern of stars that represents a figure, animal, or object.
What is: a constellation
The phase when the Moon is directly between Earth and the Sun.
What is: New Moon
The tilt of Earth's axis.
What is: 23.5 degrees
As distance increases, gravitational pull becomes this.
What is: weaker
The Moon rotates exactly this many times during one orbit around Earth.
What is: one
Stars appear to move across the sky because Earth is doing this.
What is: rotating
The positions of the Sun, Earth, and Moon affect moon phases because they determine how much of this we can see from Earth.
What is: the moon's sunlit, illuminated side
The event that gives Earth 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night.
What is: the equinox
The tendency of an object to resist changes in motion.
What is: inertia
The model that places Earth at the center.
What is: Geocentric Model
The narrow band of sky where planets appear to wander.
What is: the zodiac
When the Earth-Moon line forms a right angle with the Earth-Sun line, the Moon is in one of these two phases.
What is: first and third quarter moons
The longest day of the year occurs on this June event.
What is: the summer solstice
These two forces work together to keep the Moon traveling around Earth instead of flying away into space or crashing into Earth.
What are: gravity and inertia
The model that places the Sun at the center
What is: the Heliocentric Model