Astronomy & Models
This is the scientific study of objects in space using evidence and scientific methods.
What is astronomy?
This model placed Earth at the center of the universe.
What is the geocentric model?
This scientist proposed the heliocentric model in the early 1500s.
Who is Nicolaus Copernicus?
This tool is used to measure the Sun's shadow and help track time and seasons.
What is a gnomon?
This star is useful for navigation because it remains nearly fixed above Earth's North Pole.
What is Polaris?
Astronomers use these to represent systems that are too large, distant, or complex to investigate directly.
What are models?
This observation created a major problem for the geocentric model because planets sometimes appeared to move backward.
What is retrograde motion?
This scientist discovered that planets move in elliptical orbits.
Who is Johannes Kepler?
This rotating star chart helps identify constellations visible at different times of the year.
What is a planisphere?
Stars in this pattern may appear close together even though they can actually be at very different distances from Earth.
What is a constellation?
A model that shows the relative sizes or distances of objects is called this type of model.
What is a scale model?
Ptolemy added these small circles to help explain retrograde motion.
What are epicycles?
This scientist observed four moons orbiting Jupiter.
Who is Galileo Galilei?
This is a map of the night sky showing the locations of stars and constellations.
What is a star chart?
This ancient civilization used Sirius to help predict the Nile floods and created a 365-day calendar.
Who were the Egyptians?
A scientific model can be useful without perfectly reproducing reality because models have these.
What are limitations?
This model places the Sun at the center of the solar system.
What is the heliocentric model?
Galileo's observation of Jupiter's moons demonstrated that not every object in space revolves around this.
What is Earth?
This instrument splits light into a spectrum so astronomers can determine what stars are made of.
What is a spectroscope?
Ancient civilizations used observations of the sky for what four purposes
For navigation, calendars, agriculture, timekeeping, and these types of purposes.
This type of model uses equations and data to describe and predict planetary motion.
What is a mathematical model?
The heliocentric model explained retrograde motion because Earth and other planets orbit the Sun at what?
What are different speeds?
New evidence can reveal limitations in existing models and lead scientists to develop these.
What are better explanations/models?
Astronomers can learn about distant objects without physically traveling to them by studying the light from those objects with this type of instrument.
What is a spectroscope?
This model better explains how planets move because it explains retrograde motion more naturally, does not require epicycles, and was improved by Kepler's observations.
What is the heliocentric model?