Name ______________________________________________ Date __________________ Period ________
Inquiry 2.2: Scaling the Sun-Earth-Moon System
Direction: Read the Selection, Scaling the Sun-Earth-Moon System in your Earth in Space Book, pgs 18-21
then answer the following questions.
1. What is the diameter of Earth at the equator?
2. What is the diameter of the Moon?
3. Write a mathematical equation that describes how many times larger in diameter Earth is than the
Moon. Provide the answer to your equation. (Hint: How many Moon diameters would fit in one Earth
diameter?)
4. What is the distance from Earth to the Moon?
5. Write a mathematical equation that describes how to measure the distance from Earth to the Moon
using Earth’s diameter as a unit of measure. Provide the answer to your equation. (Hint: How many
Earth diameters would it take to get from the Earth to the Moon?)
6. What is the diameter of the Sun?
7. Write a mathematical equation that describes how many Earth diameters equal the Sun’s diameter.
Provide the answer to your equation. (Hint: How many of Earth’s diameters fit into the Sun’s
diameter?)
8. Why does the Sun appear to be the same size as the Moon in the sky?
9. Write a mathematical equation that describes why the Sun and Moon appear to be the same size.
Provide the answer to your equation. (Hint: Compare the size of the Moon to the Sun (How many
moons fit in the sun’s diameter?), and then compare the distance from Earth to the Moon to the
distance from Earth to the Sun (How many Earth’s away is the moon? How many Earth’s away is the
sun?).
10. Why is there a leap year every four years?
11. If I had a model of Earth that had a diameter of 12-cm, what would be the size of my scale model sun?