Chapter 2.1
The point directly above your head.
What is the Zenith?
An imaginary line going through the Earth, connecting the North and South poles. Earth rotates about this line.
What is the Earth's axis.
The belief that the Earth is the center of the universe.
What is the geocentric view?
He developed a heliocentric model of the solar system.
Who is Copernicus?
Galileo was the first known astronomer to use this tool.
What is a telescope?
When viewing the night sky in the northern hemisphere, the stars seem to rotate about this point.
What is the North Celestial Pole?
The idea that the sky is a great hollow dome with you at the center, and all the stars are an equal distance from you on teh surface of the dome.
What is the Celestial Sphere?
It is what we call the wobble of Earth's axis. Hipparchus was able to discover it more than 2000 years ago!!
What is precession?
He developed a complex model of the solar system with Earth at the center.
Who is Ptolemy?
Galileo's greatest contributions were in this field.
What is mechanics?
If you stood here, the North Celestial pole would be your Zenith.
What is the North Pole?
When viewed from the southern hemisphere, the stars seem to rotate about this point.
What is the South Celestial Pole?
He beleived circles and spheres to be perfect forms and suggested that Earth should therefore be a sphere.
Who is Pythagoras?
He believed the Earth was round because of the shape of the shadow it casts on the moon during an eclipse.
Who is Aristotle?
Galileo showed that this is no more natural than motion.
What is rest?
If you stand here at night, you will see Earth's Celestial Equator pass overhead through your zenith.
What is Earth's equator?
For an observer in the northern hemisphere, the north celestial pole will always be at an altitude equal to this.
What is an observer's latitude?
The ancient Mayan culture developed a sophisticated calendar based on this planet.
What is Venus?
He made the first fairly accurate determination of Earth's diameter in 200 BCE.
Who is Eratosthenes?
Galileo began training for this before he switched to mathematics.
What is a medical career?
This object, in the night sky, has a width of about half a degree.
What is the Full moon?
The planets, the Sun, and the Moon are always found in the sky within this narrow 18 degree wide belt.
What is the Zodiac?
It's the apparent shift in the direction of an object as a result of the motion of the observer.
What is parallax?
In 14,000 years, this will be our north star.
What is Vega?
Galileo found out that all objects drop at the same rates regardless of weight/mass. He also found out that falling objects do this.
What is accelerate?