SCIE 7 ASTRONOMY

Lesson 2: Motions of the Earth

MOTIONS OF THE EARTH

Description Photos

A. Rotation

- the turning or spinning of a body on its axis.

The main consequences of Earth’s rotation are day and night.

Earth’s rotation is measured in two ways:

1. Mean solar day – the time interval from one noon to the
next, which averages about 24 hours. Noon is when the
Sun has reached its zenith (highest point in the sky).
2. Sidereal day – is the time it takes for Earth to make one
complete rotation (360 degrees) with respect to a star other
than the Sun. The sidereal day is measured by the time
required for a star to reappear at the identical position in the
sky. The sidereal day has a period of 23 hours, 56 minutes,
and 4 seconds, which is almost 4 minutes shorter than the
solar day.
This difference results because the direction to distant stars
changes only infinitesimally, whereas the direction to the Sun
changes by almost 1 degree each day.

Why do we use the mean solar day to measure time rather than
the sidereal day?

In sidereal time, “noon” occurs 4 minutes earlier each day.

Therefore, after a span of 6 months, “noon” would occur at
“midnight.”

B. Revolution

- is the motion of a body, such as a planet or moon, along a path

around some point in space.

Earth revolves around the Sun in an elliptical orbit at an average

speed of 107,000 km per hour. Its average distance from the Sun is
150 million km, but because its orbit is an ellipse, Earth’s distance
from the Sun varies.

Perihelion is when Earth is 147 million km distant from the Sun

which occurs about January 3 each year. Aphelion is when Earth is
152 million km distant which occurs about July 4. The apparent
annual path of the Sun against the backdrop of the celestial sphere
is called ecliptic. The imaginary line that connects points along the
ecliptic is called plane of the ecliptic.

As measured from this imaginary plane, Earth’s axis is tilted about

23.5 degrees. This angle is very important to Earth’s inhabitants

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 SCIE 7 ASTRONOMY

because the inclination of Earth’s axis causes the yearly cycle of

seasons.

C. Axial Precession

- is the gradual change in the orientation of Earth’s axis over a

period of 26,000 years.

Although Earth’s axis maintains approximately the same angle of tilt,

the direction in which the axis points continually changes. As a
result, the axis traces a circle on the sky. This movement is similar
to the “wobble” of a spinning top.

At the present time, the axis points toward the bright star Polaris. In
AD 14000, it will point toward the bright star Vega, which will then be
the North Star for about a thousand years or so. By the year
28,000, Polaris will once again be the North Star.