Earth
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The Reason for the Seasons
As a born Californian, I never saw seasons this dramatically until I went to college in Flagstaff, Arizona. I remember, in my first year here, when I was taking a walk around campus with a few friends. We passed over…
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The Ecliptic
The ecliptic, as astronomers call it, is the apparent path of the sun against the background of the stars in the sky. It’s useful because it tells us how to find the planets in the sky. They can be hard to…
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The Celestial Sphere
When you look up at the night sky on a clear, dark night, it seems as if the stars are glittering like bright thumbtacks on a great canvas above you. (You can get a similar effect — with less light…
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Where Are We?
In the 4th century B. C. E. (Before Common Era), scientists believed the Earth was the center of the universe. Before that, they were convinced the Earth was flat. Now, most of us know that the Earth is not the…
