The Earth and Beyond

The Earth Orbits the SunAnswer Sheet(Introductory)

Author: Sarah Roberts

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The Earth and Beyond

Night and Day

1. Look at the map of the world above and answer the following questions

a). Where is the UK on the map above? Mark its position.

See map above

b). Is it night or day in the UK?

Daytime (as unshadowed part of map shows)

c). Find the positions of FTS in Australia and FTN in Hawaii. Is it day or night at these locations?

It is night at both FTS and FTN, as shown by the shadow in the image above.

d). Why are Hawaii and Australia good places to put telescopes which will be used by schools in the UK?

When it is daylight in the UK, it is night time in Hawaii and Australia, thus schools in the UK can access the telescopes and look at the night sky from their classrooms during the day.

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UK

FTS

FTN

2. Below are some clocks and calendars showing the time on different dates. Use these, and the information above to decide whether the time is in GMT or BST.

a) GMT

b) BST

c) BST

d) GMT

3. If you wanted to use the telescope in Hawaii, you first have to check that it is dark at the telescope site at the time of your planned session.

a). Is 09:00am on 5th February 2007 GMT or BST?

GMT

b). Using your answer to (a) above, work out how many hours Hawaii is behind the UK in February.

10 hours behind

c). If the Sun sets in Hawaii at 6:00pm (Hawaii time), would you be able to use FTN at this time on 5th February?

09:00 -10 hours = 11:00pm in Hawaii

Yes it would be possible to use the telescope in Hawaii at this time, as the Sun set 5 hours earlier, and thus the night sky will be completely dark.

4. The Sun sets in Australia in February around 8:00pm local time.

a). Given the information above, how many hours is Australia ahead of the UK in February?

February is DST in Australia, so they are +11 hours ahead of UK time.

b). What time is it in the UK when the Sun sets in Australia?

8:00pm local time = 20:00 local time

20:00 - 11 hours = time in UK

09:00am = time in UK

c). Although sunset in Australia in February is around 8:00pm local time, the sky does not get completely dark until about 10:00pm local time. What time is it in the UK when the sky is dark in Australia?

10:00pm local time = 22:00

22:00-11 hours = 11:00am in the UK

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d). Would it be possible to use FTS at 9:00am on 5th February? Explain your answer.

No it wouldn’t be possible because the sky does not completely dark until 11:00am, so the telescope would not be open at 9:00am.

Spinning around...

1. Does the above compass differ from the usual compass that you use when looking at direc-tions on Earth? If so, how? A diagram may be useful here.

Students will be used to seeing the following compass directions:

S

EW

N

2. Hold this page up above your head so that the N direction on the compass above, points for-wards.

a). Where does South lie?

South points behind.

b). Where does East lie? (i.e. to your left or right hand side).

East lies to the right hand side.

3. Compare the sky charts which show the constellations at different times of the night, to those which show the constellations in different months.

a). How do the positions of the constellations vary each hour? (Hint: Think about what direc-tion the constellations are moving)

Focusing on one constellation, they move across the sky from the East to the West.

b). How do the positions of the constellations vary each month? Comment on how this com-pares to their positions each hour? Do the star positions vary more during an hour or a month?

Again, the constellations move across the sky in a Westward direction. The stars posi-tions vary more in a month than they do through the night.

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c). What causes the apparent movement of the stars during the night?

The Earth turning on its axis.

d). What causes the apparent movement of the stars every month?

Both the Earth turning on its axis, and its orbit around the Sun

e). Why do we only see stars at night?

Because the light reaching us from the Sun is so bright that it effectively hides all the other light from the stars. (It must be very bright, hence why we get daylight!) The stars are still up in the sky during the day, but we just can’t see them because of the sunlight.

f). Can you think of any stars which we can see during the day?

The Sun

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