Astronomy Alphabet

Astronomy Alphabet Educational video for children Teacher https://vimeo.com/77309599 & Learner Guide This guide gives background information about the astronomy topics mentioned in the video, provides questions and answers children may be curious about, and suggests topics for discussion. Alhazen A Alhazen, called the Father of Optics, performed NASA/Goddard/Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Apollo 17 experiments over a thousand years ago Can you find Alhazen crater when you look at the Moon? to learn about how light travels and Why does the Moon look bigger near the behaves. He also studied astronomy, horizon? separated light into colors, and sought to Believe it or not, scientists still don’t know for sure why explain why the Moon looks bigger near we perceive the Moon to be larger when it lies near to the the horizon. horizon. Though photos of the Moon at different points in the sky show it to be the same size, we humans think we I’ve never heard of Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al- see something quite different. Try this experiment yourself Hasan ibn al-Hatham (Alhazen). sometime! One possibility is that objects we see next to the Tell me more about him. Moon when it’s near to them give us the illusion that it’s We don’t know that much about Alhazen be- bigger, because of a sense of scale and reference. cause he lived so long ago, but we do know that he was born in Persia in 965. He wrote hundreds How many craters does the Moon have, and what of books on math and science and pioneered the are their names? scientific method of experimentation. The Book The Moon has a LOT of craters! Some of them are hundreds of Optics describes Alhazen’s experiments in how of miles across. One lunar crater, the South Pole–Aitken vision works, and his theory is still followed to- Basin, is almost 1,500 miles in diameter! Not all lunar cra- day. This is why we call him the Father of Optics. ters have names, but the ones that do were named (and can A crater on the Moon is named after him. only be named) by the International Astronomical Union. Check out our other astronomy education resources at https://astronomy.nmsu.edu/geas Astronomy Alphabet The Constellation Orion (the Hunter) Teacher and Learner Guide p. 2 Quite a few are named after famous astronomers like Is Betelgeuse part of a constellation? Alhazen, and, as with constellations and stars, many Betelgeuse is part of the constellation Orion, visible Betelgeuse others derive their names from Greek mythology. above the equator in the winter sky. What kinds of experiments did Alhazen do? Why did scientists decide “armpit of the giant” Alhazen spent much of his life performing experi- was a good name for a star? ments to explain how our eyes worked. An unusual Many names of stars have some relation to the constel- bow aspect of his experiments was that he used mechani- lations in which they appear. We aren’t certain where cal design to formulate ideas about light and vision. the name Betelgeuse came from, but we can make an For instance, he used projectiles to show how the educated guess based on its location in the constella- angle at which an object hit a target greatly affected tion named after the mighty hunter Orion. “Armpit of whether it would puncture the target. Alhazen the giant” makes sense because Betelgeuse is located hypothesized that light worked in a similar way, right along Orion’s arm! entering the eye at a perpendicular angle. He also belt devised an early pinhole camera to demonstrate that How do stars get their names? individual bits of light (or bits of optical information) Bright stars have names given to them by ancient could enter the eye without blending together, thus astronomers, but if a star is named today, it must be forming a distinct image. done by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Most stars named today are simply designated by a sword number, rather than a name like Betelgeuse. To learn B more about this process, visit https://iau.org. Betelgeuse NASA/Hubble (A. Dupree) Photo credit Akira Fujii; annotated by Nicole Vogt The red supergiant star Betelgeuse is found in the constellation Orion, along with other much bluer (hotter) stars. The giant star Betelgeuse looks red and orange because of its low surface tem- C sky, but the named constellations we are familiar Do people in different places see the same stars? perature. The name “Betelgeuse” may have Constellation with today were primarily documented by the an- No! Your view of the night sky varies depending upon come from the Arabic for “armpit of the A constellation is a group of bright stars cient Greeks. In the southern hemisphere, where where on Earth you are and what time of year it is. Differ- g i a nt .” which appear close together on the sky, the Greeks did not travel, one can find constel- ent stars appear overhead over the course of the year, and forming a shape or pattern. Ancient civi- lations such as Telescopium with more modern as you travel north and south across the Earth different names. Why does red/orange indicate a low tempera- lizations told stories about the adventures constellation will appear and disappear in your sky. That is why star maps are adjusted for time and for place. For ture for a star? of people and creatures they saw in these Does every country have the same constella- instance, on the iPad Star Chart app, you can choose the We often associate the color red with hot tempera- shapes, and used them to navigate the world. city nearest to you in order to see the correct stars for your tures here on Earth, but stars reach temperatures far tions or names for constellations? In the scientific world, every country uses the location. beyond what we experience on a hot summer day. What are some examples of constellations? constellation names adopted by the International What are the 12 constellations of the zodiac? Astronomers classify stars according to the light Betelgeuse, the star mentioned above, is part of the Astronomical Union, but as with plants and Aries, the ram Libra, the scales they emit, where different colors of light indicate constellation Orion, which is a figure of an archer. different temperatures. The hottest stars appear icy animals, there are also common names that vary Taurus, the bull Scorpius, the scorpion Other examples of constellations are Ursa Major (a from country to country. Orion is often named as blue, and can reach temperatures near 30,000 kelvin. large bear), Pegasus (a winged horse), Leo (a lion), Gemini, the twins Sagittarius, the centaur Betelegeuse’s red-orange color indicates a “cool” tem- an archer, but was a shepherd to the Babylonians, Cancer, the crab Capricornus, the goat Cassiopeia (a queen), and Centaurus (half-horse, half- a pharaoh to the Egyptians, and a bison to the perature in the vicinity of only 3,000 kelvin, almost Leo, the lion Aquarius, the water carrier man). Lakota. 5,000 degrees Farenheit, a temperature still way too Virgo, the maiden Pisces, the fishes hot for humans! Who first thought up constellations? Astronomy Alphabet The earliest human beings identified patterns in the Teacher and Learner Guide p. 3 the Sun and the Earth and blocks the Sun’s light from Astronomy Alphabet reaching the Earth. During a lunar eclipse, the Earth Teacher and Learner Guide p. 4 comes between the Sun and the Moon and blocks the Sun’s light from shining on the Moon (casting a shad- ow across the Moon). Eclipses can occur from vantage points on other planets or satellites as well. How often do eclipses occur? Eclipses are more common the closer you lie to the equator. Because eclipses require the Sun, Earth, and Moon to line up, a particular eclipse will only be visible GEAS Project Observe the occulted Sun during a solar eclipse. from a small region on Earth for a short time. Eclipses are often partial instead of total because, from a given of the visual electromagnetic spectrum has long point, the Sun or Moon is only partially obscured. Sev- wavelengths, and the blue end has short ones. eral partial solar eclipses and many lunar eclipses occur When we see a shift toward the red end of the each year. spectrum, that indicates a celestial object is mov- ing away from us. When we see a shift toward the blue end of the spectrum, that indicates an object is coming toward us. F Fireball A fireball is a very bright meteor, a brief flash of light caused by debris burning up GEAS Project E A siren sounds to our ears like it’s changing pitch as an ambulance approaches and then recedes from us. Eclipse in our atmosphere. From our viewpoint on When the Moon passes between the Sun Earth, a fireball may briefly light up a large Why is this effect called a Doppler shift? and the Earth, it temporarily blocks portion of a dark sky. People also call them This phenomenon is named after the Austrian our view of the Sun. This is called a shooting stars (though they are not actual D physicist Christian Doppler because he was the first stars), and often wish on them for good luck. to describe it, in 1842. solar eclipse. Here we see a partial solar Doppler Shift eclipse observed from Las Cruces, New When an object emitting sound or light What is a meteor? What is it like when the Doppler shift is visual Mexico.

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