AS101 lesson 4

Sunday

Sun

Monday

Moon

Tuesday

Mars

Wednesday

Mercury

Thursday

Jupiter

Friday

Venus

Saturday

Saturn

Stonehenge

Aligned with summer solstice sunrise

Templo Mayor

Linked to solstices and equinoxes

Mayan cities

Structures aligned with equinoxes and solstices

Big Horn Medicine Wheel

Aligned with Sun, Moon, and stars

Connection of ancient sites to astronomy

Used to track seasons, calendars, and sky events

Date of Easter

Sunday after first full moon after spring equinox

Easter relates to

Lunar cycle + spring equinox

Indigenous astronomy

Sky knowledge connected to seasons, navigation, stories, and spirituality

Thales

Used natural explanations instead of mythology

Pythagoras

Proposed spherical Earth

Socrates

Promoted questioning and logical thought

Plato

Favoured perfect geometric heavens

Aristotle

Supported geocentric universe and circular motion

Ptolemy

Created geocentric model with epicycles

Copernicus

Proposed heliocentric solar system

Brahe

Collected precise planetary data

Kepler

Discovered three laws of planetary motion

Galileo

Used telescope to support heliocentrism

Newton

Explained motion with gravity and laws of motion

Newton’s gravity law

Force increases with mass and decreases with distance squared

Main cause of tides

Moon’s gravitational pull

Why two high tides occur

Tidal bulges on near and far sides of Earth

Spring tides

Highest tides during new and full moon

Neap tides

Lower tides during first and third quarter moon

Inductive reasoning

General rule from specific observations

Deductive reasoning

Specific conclusion from general rule

Scientific method uses

Both inductive and deductive reasoning

Scientific method

Observe, hypothesize, test, revise

Cosmological Principle

Earth is not special in universe

First tenet

No special location in universe

Second tenet

Same laws of physics and chemistry apply everywhe