Shape and Size of the Earth
Who was the first to suggest that the earth was spherical because "The sphere is the most perfect shape"?
Pythagoras
| How many “wanderers” did ancient cultures see moving among the stars?
Five
What does geocentric mean?
Earth at the center of the universe.
Who tried to fix the geocentric model but finally proposed a Sun-centered one?
Copernicus
What did Galileo realize about the Moon after using his telescope?
It was a ball of rock
Whose observations of curved shadows on the Moon during an eclipse supported a round Earth?
Aristotle
What Greek word meaning “wanderers” gives us our word planets?
Planētai
Who created the first geocentric model with nested spheres?
Eudoxus
What was unique about Tycho Brahe’s “in-between” model?
Planets orbited the Sun, and the Sun orbited Earth
What did he see on the Sun that showed it rotates?
Sunspots that moved
Who determined that the Moon is smaller and the Sun much larger than Earth?
Aristarchus
Our planet names come from what mythology?
Greek-Roman mythology
In Eudoxus’s model, which body was closest and which was farthest?
Moon closest, Saturn farthest
Who worked as Tycho Brahe’s assistant and found planet paths are ellipses?
Johannes Kepler
How many objects did Galileo see orbiting Jupiter?
Four
Who first measured Earth’s size using shadows in two cities?
Eratosthenes
Which planet is named for the messenger of the gods?
Mercury
Who added small circles on large circles (epicycles) to explain planet motion?
Ptolemy
How many laws of planetary motion did Kepler create?
Three
Who named those moons “satellites,” from a Latin word meaning attendants or bodyguards?
Kepler
Why did early astronomers reject Aristarchus’s Sun-centered idea?
They couldn’t see stellar parallax with the naked eye
Which slow-moving planet was called Jupiter’s father and “cast into the corner”?
Saturn
Why did Ptolemy’s model become less plausible over time? |
He kept adding circles to match predictions
Who came after Kepler and used a telescope to study planetary motion and stars?
Galileo
Who later explained gravity and motion mathematically and is often called the greatest scientist of all time?
Isaac Newton