The Sun Earth Moon System
Planet Earth orbits the Sun. The Moon orbits planet Earth. The rotation and revolution of each object causes some interesting things to happen on our planet. Scroll down to see what they are.
Why is there night and day?
I cannot explain it any better than this. Click HERE to read and watch a video.
TIDES - what and why?
Go to another page of mine to read about tides. Click HERE.
ECLIPSES
The solar eclipse is caused by the Moon getting between the Sun and the Earth. The Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon but it is 400 times farther away. It is like using your thumb to cover up somebody's head. Only people in the shadow of the umbra will see a total solar eclipse. Watch an awesome solar eclipse video HERE, and a wonderful Ted-Ed animation of the effect HERE.
A lunar eclipse happens when the Moon passes inside the shadow created by the Earth. The Moon is never fully obscured as enough light comes past the Earth so that we can still see it, but it does turn a dark red color (known as a blood moon).
So comparing the two we see that one occurs when the Earth is in the middle and the other happens when the Moon is in the middle.
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We shouldn't really say in the middle of course, as the Sun is 93 million miles away from Earth but the Moon is less than a quarter of a million (240, 000) miles away from Earth.
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They both have an umbra and a penumbra and this only happens because light travels in straight lines.
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