What did you change in the model?
Labs / Astronomy
Planetarium Sky Chart
You are lying on your back looking straight up: the edge of the circle is your horizon and the centre is the point overhead. Drag the date and time sliders to turn the whole sky about the celestial pole, and click any star to read exactly how high and in which direction it sits right now.
Labs / Astronomy / Planetarium Sky Chart
Planetarium Sky Chart
You are lying on your back looking straight up: the edge of the circle is your horizon and the centre is the point overhead. Drag the date and time sliders to turn the whole sky about the celestial pole, and click any star to read exactly how high and in which direction it sits right now.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Astronomy uses patterns in light and motion to explain objects we cannot touch directly. This model lets you change one part of a space system and see what the evidence would look like.
Explore
Try the model
LST 00:00Polaris 40°Vega
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Slide your latitude toward the North Pole. Which stars stop setting and just circle the pole all night long?
- Why does the altitude of Polaris always come out almost exactly equal to your latitude?
- Jump to Sydney at 34°S. Where did Polaris go, and what appears near the bottom of the sky instead?
- Hold the time fixed and drag the date across a whole year. How far does a star like Vega drift from one month to the next?
- Let the sky spin and watch Orion. Does every star trace a circle around the same point, and which way do they turn?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Look for a cause-and-effect rule: what did you change, what responded, and what stayed the same? Astronomers use those patterns to infer how distant systems work.
Check
Before you leave
What visible evidence changed?
What rule could explain that change?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.