The starry skies : $b or, First lessons on the sun, moon and stars

Description

"The starry skies" by Agnes Giberne is a children’s astronomy primer written in the late 19th century. It introduces young readers to the basic facts of the heavens—Earth’s shape and motion, gravity, day and night, the Moon’s phases and surface, and the scale and nature of the Sun and planets—through clear analogies, simple experiments, and end‑of‑chapter questions. The opening of the book uses a traveler’s tale to show that Earth is a sphere, explains horizons, poles, the equator and hemispheres, and then answers the classic question of why people don’t “fall off” by introducing attraction or gravitation and the relativity of “up” and “down.” It describes day and night and the Sun’s changing path with seasons, equinoxes, solstices, and the zenith, then notes that the Moon and stars also rise and set, with some stars circling the pole. Next it shows that these daily movements are apparent, not real, using a train analogy to reveal Earth’s rotation about its axis. It measures the Moon and Earth (diameter vs. circumference), scales their sizes and distance with simple models, and explains the Moon’s phases, synchronous rotation, and long lunar day and night. Through a telescope the Moon appears airless, cratered, and stark—black sky, sharp shadows, extreme cold, Earth shining overhead, and weaker gravity. The section closes by setting the Sun’s vast size and distance (a star shining by its own light) against the small, reflective planets, and begins a discussion of sunspots and the Sun’s rotation. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Subjects

• Astronomy -- Juvenile literature
• QB