The Sun
This giant ball of hot gas gives Earth its light and heat.
What is the Sun?
This is the natural object that orbits Earth and can be seen shining at night.
What is the Moon?
These are the eight large objects that orbit the Sun in our solar system.
What are the planets?
Earth’s spinning on its axis causes this daily pattern of light and dark.
What is day and night?
A shadow is made when an object does this to the light from a source like the Sun.
What is blocks the light?
The Sun appears to rise in the east and set in the west because Earth does this once every 24 hours.
What is rotation?
The Moon looks bright in the night sky because it does this with sunlight.
What is reflects sunlight?
This is the third planet from the Sun — and the only one known to support life.
What is Earth?
Earth takes about this long to make one full rotation on its axis.
What is 24 hours (one day)?
When the Sun is high in the sky at noon, shadows are usually this size.
What is short?
The Sun’s position in the sky changes during the year because Earth does this as it moves around the Sun.
What is revolution (orbiting the Sun)?
It takes about this many days for the Moon to complete one orbit around Earth.
What is about 28 days? (or “one month”)
This planet is known for its beautiful rings made of ice and rock.
What is Saturn?
Earth’s revolution around the Sun takes this long to complete.
What is 365 days (one year)?
When the Sun is low in the sky in the morning or evening, shadows appear like this.
What is long?
This imaginary line through Earth causes sunlight to hit the Northern and Southern Hemispheres differently during the year.
What is the tilt of Earth’s axis?
The changing shapes of the Moon that we see from Earth are called these.
What are the phases of the Moon?
These four planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—are called this because they are rocky and solid.
What are the inner (terrestrial) planets?
Earth’s tilt and revolution around the Sun cause this repeating yearly pattern of temperature and daylight changes.
What are the seasons?
As Earth rotates, the Sun appears to move across the sky, causing shadows to do this.
What is change direction and length?
When neither hemisphere is tilted toward or away from the Sun, we experience this kind of day, when daytime and nighttime are about equal length.
What is an equinox?
When the Moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, blocking the Sun’s light, this event happens.
What is a solar eclipse?
These four planets are gas giants and impossible for us to travel to.
What are Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter?
When the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun, it experiences this season, while the Southern Hemisphere experiences the opposite one.
What is summer (in the Northern Hemisphere) and winter (in the Southern Hemisphere)?
If you track a shadow’s position throughout the day, it moves in this general direction.
What is east to west?