| Planetary Cycles
Our universe has many cycles. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, turns like a
wheel, and all the stars within it revolve around its center. Our solar
system moves within this galaxy. The sun spins on its axis once every
24 days and 16 hours. The planets turn on their axis and orbit the sun.
Moons orbit their planets.
It took a long time for humans to understand about our planet and its
cycles. Humans used to think that the earth was a huge plate that rested
on the back of four elephants standing on a giant floating turtle. Or
they believed that one of the gods carried the earth on this shoulders.
We now know that the cycles of our planet earth, our moon, and the sun
all affect life on earth.
Sample some of the following activities to learn more about planetary
cycles.
Places To Go | People
To See | Things To Do | Teacher
Resources | Bibliography
Places To Go
The following are places to go (some real and some virtual) to find out
about planetary cycles.
Exploring the Planets
Visit the planets of our solar system and compare their atmospheres, their
surfaces, and the processes by which they were formed.
National Air and Space
Museum
Virtually walk through the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian
for planetary exhibits.
Bay
of Fundy
Tides are caused by the gravitational attraction of the moon on the earth
and, to a lesser extent, of the sun on the earth. Visit the Bay of Fundy
on the Canadian Atlantic coast near Nova Scotia. It has the highest tide
changes in the world. The tides can be as great as 70 feet which is as
high as a seven-story building! The bay is surrounded by steep cliffs
up to 200 feet high. These cliffs funnel the ocean waters into two narrow
niches, called Chignecto Bay and Minas Basin, which magnify the rise and
fall of the tides.
NASA
- Mercury
Travel to Mercury. Its planetary cycles are very different than those
of the earth. Its years are short, and its days are long compared to the
earth. The earth makes one revolution around the sun in 365 days which
is the length of our year. Mercury makes a revolution much more quickly
than the earth and travels around the sun in just under 88 earth days.
Calculate what your age would be if you lived on Mercury. (A 10-year-old
on earth would be 41 years old on Mercury). Earth's day is about 24 hours
long (the period that it takes the earth to rotate once on its axis).
Mercury rotates much more slowly than the earth. The length of a day on
Mercury is equivalent to 58 earth days. So--on Mercury, their year equals
about 1.5 of their days.
People To See
 Ask
Dr. Universe
Ask Dr. Universe how the moon affects the tides, how stars get their colors,
and all your other planetary cycle questions.
Ferdinand
Magellan
Meet Ferdinand Magellan. He was from Portugal. In 1522, when his remaining
ship arrived back in Spain from the long voyage around the world, it proved
that the earth is round. (Magellan, himself, didn't arrive back in Spain.
He was killed in the Philippines at one of their stops).
Nicolaus
Copernicus
Visit with Nicolaus Copernicus. He was from Poland. He was interested
in planetary cycles. In 1543, he published his studies on the planets.
His measurements of the paths of the planets suggested that they moved
around the sun. Here's more about Copernicus.
The Galileo
Project
Get to know Galileo Galilei. He was from Italy. He was interested in planetary
cycles, too. He built his first telescope in 1609. He used it to look
at Jupiter. He noticed 4 objects near Jupiter that he first thought were
stars. He observed Jupiter every night for over a month and saw that these
objects moved to different places around Jupiter. He realized that they
were moons circling around Jupiter. This discovery was instrumental in
showing that every object in the sky did not move around the earth. Here's more about Galileo.
Johannes
Kepler
Chat with Johannes Kepler. He was from Germany. He was also interested
in planetary cycles. In 1609, he studied the movement of the planets and
realized that they did not move in a perfect circle around the sun. He
figured out that they had an elliptical path. Here's more about Kepler.
 Isaac
Newton
Visit with Isaac Newton. He was from England. He was also interested in
the movement of planets. In the middle 1600s, he figured out that the
force that made the planets go around the sun was gravity. Here's more about Newton.
Ask An
Astronomer
Ask the astronomers at this site your questions about planetary cycles.
Ask
the Space Scientist
Ask the Space Scientist your questions about planetary cycles. Browse
through this site's excellent archive of past questions and answers.
Things To Do
Complete
Sun and Moon Data for One Day
Find the exact times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset for your
town.
 Sunrise/Sunset/Twilight
and Moonrise/Moonset/Phase
Here's another place to find planetary cycle information. The earth always
spins eastward. It is because of this easterly rotation that we can see
the sun coming up in the east every day and going down in the west. Enter
the name of your town to calculate the exact sunrise and sunset and moonrise
and moonset for your area.
 Solar System Extrema
Check out the largest, smallest, brightest and densest of the major bodies
in the solar system and those with best prospects for life
NOAA
- Tides
Figure out tides. Tides are the effect that the moon and the sun have
on the oceans. They're the daily rise and fall of the level of the oceans'
waters. High and low tides occur about 6 hours apart. The distance in
height between high and low tide is called the tidal range. When the earth,
moon, and sun are in a line, the combined pull of the moon and sun causes
the highest and lowest tides. These are called spring tides. When the
sun ad the moon are at a right angle with the earth, their pulls work
against one another. This results in the lowest tidal range and is called
the neap tide. Spring
and neap tides both happen twice a month.
Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution
Tides are the twice daily rise and fall of the oceans. Learn about the
lunar and solar forces that create tides on the earth.
 Star
Child - Life Cycle of Stars
Find out how stars are formed. They have a cycle all their own that begins
with a nebula and ends with a black hole.
Local Times
Around the World
Find out what time it is in Sydney, Australia. Time has a cycle, too,
and it has to do with the earth's rotation. The earth is divided into
24 time zones. They start at the Greenwich Meridian in England where the
time is called Greenwich Mean Time or G.M.T. When you move east into the
next time zone, you move your watch forward one hour. When you move west,
you move your watch back one hour. Find out how we first figured out how
to measure
time.
Teacher Resources
Hotlists from UEN provide internet sites to
visit to find out more about specific topics--in this case, planetary
cycles! (You can learn how to use this WWW
Activities tool created by UEN for Utah educators).
Online activities are a listing of internet
sites with fun, interesting, and educational tasks attached to each one.
(You can learn how to use this WWW
Activities tool created by UEN for Utah educators).
Virtual Field Trips are teacher and student-created
tours of curricular topics. (You can learn how to use this UEN Virtual
Field Trip tool created by UEN for Utah educators).
Activities
Bibliography
- Armentrout, Patricia. Tides and Waves. Vero Beach, Fla. : Rourke Press,
c1996.
- Clay, Rebecca. Stars and Galaxies. New York : Twenty-First Century
Books, c1997.
- Gallant, Roy A. When the Sun Dies. New York : Marshall Cavendish,
1999.
- George, Michael. The Sun. Chanhassen, Minn. : Child's World, c1998.
- Kosek, Jane Kelly. What's Inside the Sun? New York : PowerKids
Press, 1999.
- Rockwell, Anne F. Our Stars. San Diego : Silver Whistle/Harcourt Brace
& Co., c1999.
- Sipiera, Paul P. Stars. New York : Children's Press, 1997.
- Tesar, Jenny E. The Moon. Des Plaines, Ill. : Heinemann Interactive
Library, 1998.
- Tesar, Jenny E. The Sun. Des Plaines, Ill. : Heinemann Interactive
Library, c1998.
- Walker, Niki. The Moon. New York : Crabtree Pub., c1998.
- Welsbacher, Anne. Sun and Stars. Minneapolis, Minn : Abdo & Daughters,
c1997
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