REUTERS/Aaron
Josefczyk
That’s
how apologies work, right?
Anyway,
in an effort to distract you all from the gaping hole that my lack of updating
has caused in your lives, here is another question from my cute godson, G. He asks, “Why does the sun move?”
Jeez, I
cannot seem to get him off of this astronomy kick. Is it too much to ask for some biology
questions, things like, “Why are plants’ leaves green” or “Where do babies come
from”? Uhh . . . okay, you know
what? Let’s stick with astronomy for the
time being, otherwise his mom might have a few “choice” words for me.
Well G, to answer
your question, the sun does not actually move*.
It is actually the Earth that moves while the sun stays still. When you asked why the sun doesn’t
always shine,
I told you that the Earth is really big and spins in space. This means that the sun will shine on
different places on Earth throughout the day.
If you remember, I had you perform a little activity to
demonstrate. Your mom stood behind you
in a dark room and shined a flashlight at you.
As you stood in one spot and slowly turned to the left, the flashlight
came into view (1). As you continued to
turn, you could soon see the entire flashlight (2). And finally you would start to see less and
less of the flashlight (3).
So
because the Earth spins around in space, it seems that the sun is moving
through the sky, but really the sun stays still.
*For
those of you that aren’t three years old, my statement is not entirely true.
Hopefully
this isn’t too obscure of a
reference.
