18.3 Celestial Sphere

1. Let's say we find a star that is located on the points or circles in the sky listed in the answer choices below. Then, on the same night, we move to a location on Earth that is some significant distance from our first location. There will now be a different star at or on:

• the celestial north pole
• the zenith
• the celestial equator
• the celestial south pole
• all of the above

2. The point in the sky directly above your head at any given time is called the

• nadir
• zenith
• celestial pole
• horizon point
• bald spot

3. The celestial sphere turns once around each day because

• the planet on which we live is rotating
• the Earth is going around the Sun
• the phases of the Moon
• precession
• everything in the universe turns around the Earth

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS1-1

4. The south celestial pole and the north celestial pole lie in the sky directly above

• the Earth's equator
• the observer's zenith
• the ecliptic
• the Earth's axis
• the town of Bayonne, New Jersey

5. On the celestial sphere, halfway between the celestial poles lies the

• horizon
• zenith for all observers
• celestial equator
• path of the Sun on any given day
• celestial hungarian

6. From a city in the U.S., where in the sky would you look to see a star that is not turning with the motion of the sky in the course of a night?

• on your horizon
• at your zenith
• on the celestial equator
• at the north celestial pole
• you can't fool me, all stars appear to turn around the sky from locations in the U.S.

7. Some Canadian troops are sent (as part of a U.N. peacekeeping force) to a country located on the Earth's equator. At night, when homesickness makes them gaze sleeplessly at the stars, which of the following will be familiar to them (the same at the equator as in Canada):

• the celestial poles are on the north and south points of the horizon
• the celestial equator is overhead and passes through the zenith
• all stars rise and set (no star remains in the sky all night long)
• all stars are above the horizon exactly half a day
• none of the above are the same on the equator as in Canada

8. A graduate student in geology who grew up in Florida (near the southernmost tip of the United States) gets to accompany her research professor to the North Pol What will be different at the North Pole from the way she remembers the sky in Florida?

• the celestial pole is overhead
• the celestial equator is on the horizon
• the way (and whether) the stars rise or set
• all of the above would be different from the way it is in Florida
• all of the above (a - c) would be the same as in Florida

9. In the Northern Hemisphere, the altitude (height in degrees above the horizon) of the North Star is always roughly equal to the

• longitude of the observer
• latitude of the observer
• altitude of the Sun
• the tilt of the Earth's axis
• the temperature at midnight

10. Someone who observes the sky every clear night in Boston for many years will NEVER get to see:

• the south circumpolar zone
• the north celestial pole
• the observer's zenith point
• the north circumpolar zone
• the Big Dipper