How Big? How Far? How Old?
Step One: Size
- Use: Hubble Deep Field, Moon, Milky Way, Earth, Pleiades, Saturn, and the Sun.
- Arrange from smallest to largest.
- Circulate to other groups. Note how they arranged theirs and ask them to explain why there are differences (if there are).
- Class should try to reach a consensus on the order. Explain why you chose the order that you did.
- Consider the following questions when arranging:
Step Two: Distance
- Repeat the procedure in Step One, this time arrange the cards from nearest to Earth to farthest:
- Use: Hubble Deep Field, Moon, Whirlpool Galaxy, Sun, Pleiades, Saturn, Pluto.
- Discussion:
- You now know the size of the Moon and the Sun. You know how they look in the sky. What can this tell us about their distance?
- Saturn takes 10 thousand Earth days to orbit the Sun. Pluto takes 90 thousand Earth days. What can this tell us about their distance?
- The Pleiades, can be seen with the naked eye. The Whirlpool Galaxy can be seen with binoculars. The Hubble cluster of galaxies was discovered by the Hubble Telescope in the 1990s. What can this tell us about their distance?
Step Three: Age
- Repeat the procedure in Step Two:
- Use: Hubble Deep Field, Great Pyramid of Giza, Sun, Earth, Pleiades, Moon, Stegosaurus.
- Discussion:
- Do you think everything in the sky is older than human history? Older than life on Earth?
- Three of these pictures are objects in our solar system. Do you think they are similar in age?
- We know that the cluster of galaxies is farthest from us. Does this tell us anything about its age?