Homework Policies: No late homework! Homeworks must be typed (though handwritten
ID: 112757 • Letter: H
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Homework Policies: No late homework! Homeworks must be typed (though handwritten diagrams & sketches are OK). Make sure to draw your own homework diagrams, not to import diagrams from the Internet. Also, a diagram copied directly from class lectures is not necessarily a correct answer: think carefully about the question being asked! Important: Do not just copy your homework answers from another student, or from the textbook, or from any external source: everything should be written by you in your own words, with complete understanding of everything that you have chosen to write down. Problems: 1. Whether you realize it or not, you're already trained to be an amateur Astronomer! In fact, there are many things that you can figure out just by looking up at the sky: (a) Looking up at the stars (in, say', December), name one specific thing that you could see which would tell you that Winter had arrived. (b) Judging by the Sun, name one specific thing that you could notice which would tell you that Winter had arrived. (c) The star Polaris is located at your zenith. Where on Earth are you? (d) You've been kidnapped, and taken somewhere far away. When you escape in the dead of night, and look up the sky, you notice that many of the stars & constellations overhead are ones which you have never seen before. How is this possible? (e) You know that the Constellation Lyra is high overhead, but you can't see it, because it's daytime. What could you do - By going somewhere? By waiting for some period of time? - in order to see Lyra at nighttime? (f) Whenever you see a number of planets up at night, you notice that they are all lined up along a particular band of the sky. Give one name for this specific region of the Celestial Sphere. 2. The Earth's axis is tilted by about 23.5 degrees with respect to its orbit around the Sun in the Ecliptic plane. (a) Make a sketch, drawing an arrow' to represent the North Pole in each case, showing the orientation and position of the Earth around the Sun at four times during the year: on the Summer Solstice (June 21), the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21), the Vernal Equinox (March 21), and the Autumnal Equinox (Sept. 21). (b) If you were standing at the North Pole, for how many hours would the Sun be above your horizon during the day of the Summer Solstice, and for how many hours during the day of the Winter Solstice? (Visualizing where the "terminator9 is on the Earth may help you.) (c) What could be done to the Earth's tilt to make our seasons more extreme? What about less extreme? (Draw simple pictures to demonstrate.)Explanation / Answer
a. Winter solstice the day with the fewest timing hours of the sunlight during a single year. In the Northern Hemisphere, it usually occurs around the month of December, When one is looking at the stars during the winter season there are certain reasons like :
Polaris is so important is because of its axis of Earth which is pointed almost directly on the earth surface. During the night time, Polaris does not rise or even it set, it remains in nearly the same spot above on the northern horizon year while the other stars circle around it.
So, at any hour of the night, during any time of a single year the Northern Hemisphere, you can readily find Polaris and it has been always found in a due northerly direction. If you were at the North Pole, the North Star would be directly overhead.
b. In the winter season the day time is the lowest during the whole year, again the sun rises from the east & inclind towards Northern side.
c. AT the Northern Polarities.
d. It is possible if I have been kidnapped and transferred from One Hemisphere to to Another.
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