Name:____________________________
Date:_________________ Period: _____
Rotation, Revolution, and the Moon Review
Answer the following:
1. What is the study of space called?
Astronomy
2. What word describes the imaginary line the Earth rotates around?
Axis
3. What causes night and day on Earth?
Earth’s rotation
4. The movement of Earth around the sun once a year is Earth’s revolution.
5. What shape best describes the Earth’s orbit?
ellipse
6. Draw a picture of the Sun and Earth during the Winter Solstice; explain where the sun’s
rays hit the Earth most directly.
7. Draw a picture of the Sun and Earth during the Summer Solstice; explain where the sun’s
rays hit the Earth most directly.
8. Draw a picture of the Sun and Earth during either Equinox; explain where the sun’s rays
hit the Earth most directly.
9. How many months is it between the Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox? 3
10.
Why do we only see one side of the moon from Earth?
The moon’s rotation and revolution happen at the same speed (the moon is phase locked)
11.
Why does the moon appear to glow?
The light from the sun reflects off of it.
12.
What causes the phases of the moon?
How the moon moves position relative to the sun’s position.
13.
When Earth’s shadow falls on the Moon, the shadow causes a lunar eclipse.
14.
When the Moon casts a shadow on the Earth it causes a solar eclipse.
15.
Why don’t we have eclipses every month?
The moon’s orbit is at a different angle than Earth’s orbit.
16.
What causes the tides?
The gravitational pull from the moon.
17.
What caused the moon to have craters?
Impacts from meteors and other space debris.
18.
What instrument did Galileo use to study the moon?
The telescope
19.
What did people originally think Maria were?
Shallow seas on the moon
20.
What was the name of the spacecraft that took the first men to the moon?
It was the Apollo 11 mission. The lunar module took the astronauts down to the surface of
the moon.
21. Draw the Phases of the Moon
New
Waxing
First
Moon
Crescent Quarter
Waxing
Gibbous
Full
Moon
Waning
Gibbous
Last
Quarter
Waning
Crescent
Define the following:
22. Axis - An imaginary line that passes through Earth’s center and the North and South
poles, about which Earth rotates.
23. Ellipse - An elongated circle, or oval shape; the shape of the planet’s orbit.
24. Orbit - The path of an object as it revolves around another object in space.
25. Revolution - The movement of an object around another object.
26. Rotation - A spinning motion of a planet about its axis.
27. How does the sun produce energy?
By nuclear fusion (H is changed into He)
28. The layer of the sun that we can see is called the photosphere..
29. How many atmospheric layers does the sun have? 4
30. What layer of the sun can you see during a solar eclipse? Should you look at it?
The corona. No, you should not look at it.
31. What feature of the sun causes the Aurora Borealis? Which layer of the atmosphere
does this occur in?
Solar flares.
32. Why can more people see a lunar eclipse than a solar eclipse?
A lunar eclipse is larger (the shadow from the Earth is bigger) and it lasts longer.
33. What is the collision Theory? Do you agree with this theory? Why or why not?
When Earth was forming (still molten), a large planet sized object hit it tearing off part of
Earth. The material that was torn off was in orbit around Earth. Over time that material
clumped up to form our moon.