What path do the Moon and Sun take across the sky?
In the same clockwork fashion that our Moon orbits the Earth, the Earth orbits the Sun in an imaginary path called the ecliptic plane. The Earth is tilted on its axis, spinning like a huge gyroscope—holding our position as we orbit the Sun and our Moon orbits us. Just like our imaginary runner around the bases, we reach a point where our northern hemisphere is titled towards the Sun—Summer Solstice. As we progress to the opposite, the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun—Winter Solstice. During Summer Solstice the Sun will appear to be slightly higher in the sky for the northern hemisphere and the Moon slightly lower. At Winter Solstice the opposite is true. Twice yearly we reach the point in our orbit where night and day is about equal and the Sun and Moon begin to exchange places—Equinox. Demonstrate these changes for yourself by creating a simple equinox marker and measure the shadow when the Sun is at its highest and hen again over the weeks as the seasons change!
