Unit E Section 1.1

Question 1

What is One-Mitt Measure?

Answer 1

-Inuit in the high arctic traditionally used the width of a mitt held at arm’s length to gauge the height of the Sun
above the horizon.
-When the Sun rose to a height of one-mitt width, it meant that seal pups would be born in two lunar
cycles.

Question 2

What does the word SOLSTICE mean?

Answer 2

• “solstice” comes from the Latin
• ‘sol’ meaning sun,
• ‘stice’ meaning stop

Question 3

When does the summer solstice occur in the Northern Hemisphere?

Answer 3

the summer solstice occurs near June 21.

Question 4

What is the summer solstice?

Answer 4

It marks the longest period of daylight in the year and represents the start of summer.

Question 5

When does the winter solstice occur?

Answer 5

near December 21

Question 6

What is the winter solstice?

Answer 6

It marks the shortest day of the year and the start of winter.

Question 7

When do the summer and winter solstice occur in the Southern Hemisphere?

Answer 7

The solstice occur opposite on when the occur in the northern hemisphere:
Summer: December 21
Winter: June 21

Question 8

What is the Stonehenge?

Answer 8

• More than 3500 years ago
• possibly the ancient Celts erected the megaliths of Stonehenge
• still standing in southern England.

Question 9

How does the Stonehenge mark seasonal change?

Answer 9

-Arranged in concentric circles, the enormous stones mark the summer and winter solstices

Question 10

How did Ancient African cultures mark seasonal change?

Answer 10

. Ancient African cultures also set large rock pillars into patterns that could be used to predict the timing of the solstices.

Question 11

When is Spring Equinox?

Answer 11

about March 21

Question 12

When is Fall Equinox?

Answer 12

about September 22

Question 13

What does the word Equinox mean?

Answer 13

The word “equinox” comes from the Latin:

• equi meaning equal
• nox meaning nigh

Question 14

What is an Equinox?

Answer 14

At the equinox, day and night are of equal length.

Question 15

How did the Mayans celebrate the two equinoxes?

Answer 15

-built an enormous cylinder-shaped tower at
Chichén Itzá
-about A.D. 1000
- to celebrate the occurrence of the two equinoxes.

Question 16

Why did The ancient Egyptians build many pyramids and other monuments?

Answer 16

to align with the seasonal position of certain stars

• The entrance passage of Khufu, the Great Pyramid at Giza, once lined up with Thuban (a star in the constellation of Draco).
• At the time the pyramid was built, starting about 2700 B.C., Thuban was the closest star showing true north.

Question 17

How did the Aboriginal people align stars?

Answer 17

used large rocks to build medicine circles in which key rocks aligned with the bright stars that rose in the
dawn

-such as Aldebaran, Rigel, and Sirius.

Question 18

Which nations had beliefs,

ceremonies, and legends about the sun?

Answer 18

North American 
First Nations,
Australian Aborigines,
Aztecs, 
Chinese,
Egyptians, 
Greeks, 
Inuit,
Japanese, 
Norse.

Question 19

What is the Geocentric Model?

Answer 19

2000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle proposed a geocentric to explain planetary motion:

Earth at the center, surrounded by a series of
concentric spheres that represented the paths of the Sun, Moon, and five planets are known at the time

Question 20

How were the stars describe in the Geocentric model?

Answer 20

To explain why the distant stars did not move,

Aristotle hypothesized that they were attached firmly
to the outermost sphere (what he called the “celestial sphere”) where they stayed put as though glued to an immovable ceiling.

Question 21

What tools did Aristotle use to figure out the planetary motion in outer space?

Answer 21

mathematics and geometry of Pythagoras

and Euclid, which he used to calculate the size and shape of the spheres.

Question 22

Heliocentric Model

Answer 22

Then, in 1530, Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus
proposed a model that explained planetary motion:

• suggested that the Sun was at the center and Earth and the other planets revolved in orbits around it.

Question 23

What did Galileo Galilei of Italy discover In the 1600s?

Answer 23

was the first person to view mountains on the Moon, a “bump” on either side of Saturn (later found to be the outer edges of the planet’s rings), spots on the Sun, moons orbiting Jupiter, and the distinct phases of Venus.

Question 24

What did the German mathematician, Johannes Kepler discover?

Answer 24

The orbits of the planets, he realized, were ellipses and not circles.

Question 25

What are ellipses?

Answer 25

a regular oval shape