A8 - Astronomical Awareness

This assignment will test your astronomical awareness and perhaps motivate you to pay more attention to the cycles of the universe.

Your grade on this assignment won’t be based on your answers, so there is no need to look anything up.  The point is simply to get you to reflect on what you know and don’t know and to enable a comparison of your astronomical awareness to your classmates.

So here are the questions.  You should just copy this text and edit it to include your answers .

1. What astronomical evidence was used to argue that the earth orbits the sun and reject the compelling perception that the sun moves around the earth once a day?
2. Polaris is the “North Star” (or “Pole Star”). Can you locate it in the night sky? How do you do that?
3. Why is it useful to be able to locate the North Star?
4. If today is your birthday, the Sun has just moved into Pisces from Aquarius, so Pisces is your Zodiac sign. If the sun is in Pisces today, in what Zodiac sign will the moon be when it is full in  March?
5. In what month does the sun reach its highest elevation above the horizon?
6. In what month does the full moon reach its highest elevation above the horizon?
7. Why do we always see the same “face” of the moon throughout the month? (the “man in the moon”)
8. Why doesn’t a solar eclipse happen every month when the moon passes between the earth and the sun?