Solar Elevation
When the Sun is low in the sky, sunlight spreads over a larger surface area, producing this temperature effect.
What are cooler temperatures?
This orientation of Earth relative to the Sun produces summer in one hemisphere and winter in the other.
What is one hemisphere tilting toward the Sun while the other tilts away?
This condition must occur for a lunar eclipse to be visible from Earth.
What is Earth being positioned between the Sun and Moon?
This daily pattern of star movement across the sky is caused by Earth’s rotation.
What is the apparent motion of stars?
This phase occurs when the Moon is positioned between Earth and the Sun, leaving its illuminated side facing away from Earth.
What is a new moon?
This daily moment occurs when the Sun reaches its highest solar elevation in the sky for that location.
What is solar noon?
During this event, day and night are nearly equal everywhere on Earth.
Observers inside this shadow region experience a total solar eclipse.
What is the umbra?
This group of stars forms a recognizable pattern in the sky that people have used for storytelling and navigation for thousands of years.
What is a constellation?
This phase occurs when half of the Moon’s visible surface is illuminated and the illuminated portion is increasing.
What is the first quarter moon?
At sunrise and sunset the Sun’s rays travel through more atmosphere, causing this visible color effect.
What are red or orange sunsets?
If Earth’s axial tilt were significantly larger than 23.5°, this seasonal effect would likely become more extreme.
What are stronger seasonal temperature differences?
This factor determines how wide the path of totality is during a solar eclipse.
What is the size of the Moon’s shadow on Earth?
This star has historically been used for navigation because it lies close to the North Celestial Pole.
What is Polaris (the North Star)?
This phase occurs when the entire face of the Moon visible from Earth is illuminated by sunlight.
What is a full moon?
A city located farther from the equator generally experiences this change in solar elevation between summer and winter.
What is a large seasonal change in the Sun's angle?
At the poles during part of the year, the Sun never rises above the horizon; this phenomenon is called this.
What is polar night?
This type of eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through only part of Earth’s shadow, so only a portion of the Moon appears darkened.
What is a partial lunar eclipse?
Over the course of a year, different constellations become visible at night because of this motion of Earth.
What is Earth’s revolution around the Sun?
This type of moon phase occurs when more than half of the visible Moon is illuminated but it is not yet full.
What is a gibbous moon?
This factor determines how much solar energy per square meter reaches Earth’s surface because it controls the angle at which sunlight strikes the ground.
What is the solar elevation angle?
The opposite phenomenon occurs when the Sun remains above the horizon for 24 hours or more.
What is the midnight sun?
This reason explains why a total solar eclipse lasts only a few minutes at any one location on Earth.
What is the Moon’s shadow moving quickly across Earth’s surface?
This observational pattern helped early astronomers determine that Earth changes its position in space throughout the year.
What is the seasonal shift of constellations?
This reason explains why we observe different Moon phases even though half of the Moon is always illuminated by the Sun.
What is the Moon’s orbit around Earth changing the portion of the illuminated half that we see?