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Test:5th Grade Science
| 1. | If you were to watch the night sky from dusk to dawn, you would notice starts rising from the eastern horizon. They will sweep across the night sky and set beneath the western horizon at dawn. Something interesting happens over time. If you were to look outside again a few weeks later, those same stars would disappear from your view. A new group of stars would take their place. In the winter months, stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere look into the night sky and see Orion the Hunter. The same spot in the summertime revels the stars of Scorpius. In the spring, the constellation of the Sickle of Leo, the Lion, is present. Finally, in the fall, the Great Square of Pegasus comes into view. Every season this same pattern takes place, and the constellations return to the skywatcher's view. As our Earth whirls through space around the Sun, its motions cause night and day, the four seasons, and the passage of the years. The Earth completes a single turn on its axis, not in 24 hours, but 23 hours 56 minutes. As a result, the stars appear to rise, cross the sky and set four minutes earlier each night. The Earth does not merely stand in the same spot in space and spins but is always rushing eastward along in its orbit around the Sun. What patterns in the stars do we notice when observing the night sky? |
Stars appear seasonally and are not all visible for the whole year in a single location.
Constellations are single stars that can be seen in the spring and fall.
Stars appear year-round in the same location.
Constellations are groups of stars that are seen in summer and winter.
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