Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to identify components of the solar system, including the Sun, Earth and other planets, natural satellites, comets, asteroids and meteoroids, and to describe their main physical characteristics. The museum offers two records: al-Farghani's account of the Sun, Moon and planets moving along the zodiac, and a report of a tailed star in 905 AH; the class brings the other bodies and their physical characteristics, which the museum does not hold. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- E2.1 identify components of the solar system, including the Sun, Earth and other planets, natural satellites, comets, asteroids, and meteoroids, and describe their main physical characteristics
2 The lesson
What do you know about each body?
For each body you read about, write its name, what the record says about its place or movement, and what you would still have to find out from another source.
Go deeper
In the record on the second motion, al-Farghani says the moon has its own sphere in the second motion; its movement along the zodiac from west to east, contrary to the first motion, is accomplished together with the motion of the epicycle 2 3. The five planets' motion in the second motion is detailed in chapter fourteen 4.
Why they did it
No sentence of the record on al-Farghani says why he wrote. It shows that the index of the Latin edition lists thirty chapters 5, and that the chapters show him estimating the earth's circumference from a degree measured by the cubit in al-Ma'mun's days 6.
Think about it
The report of 905 AH tells where a tailed star rose, where its tail lay and where it moved, while al-Farghani's second motion tells how the Sun and the planets move along the zodiac. Which of the two gives you more to compare from one night to the next, and why?
Into the museum
- The second motion: the proper motion of the sun and planets along the zodiac.
- A comet appears, 905: the report in Shadharat al-Dhahab.
- Al-Farghani: the author of the Thirty Chapters and what the sources say of his time.
Try this
Make a table of the bodies named in the second motion and in the report of 905 AH: the name, what the record says about it, and what you would need to find out elsewhere.
3 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does The second motion (the planets' own motion along the zodiac) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
The Sun and the planets move along the zodiac. Al-Farghani describes the second motion as the sun's and planets' own motion along the zodiac from west to east, opposite in direction to the first. He shows that the sun covers the zodiac by its own motion in a solar year, returning to its point in about three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter. Which bodies of the sky does this description name?
In your own words: what does A comet appears, 905 have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A tailed star over Yemen and Syria. Shadharat al-Dhahab reports that in 905 AH a tailed star rose from the east of Najd; its rising was in Aries, its tail over Yemen and its course through Syria. The report tells where it rose, where its tail lay and where it moved. What would you look for to tell a comet from an ordinary star?
I can now
Notes
- 1. Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum: Science and Technology, Grades 1–8 (2022)
- 2. al-Farghani, Elementa astronomica (Golius, Amsterdam 1669), p. 183
- 3. al-Farghani, Elementa astronomica (Golius, Amsterdam 1669), p. 185
- 4. al-Farghani, Elementa astronomica (Golius, Amsterdam 1669), p. 187
- 5. al-Farghani, Elementa astronomica (Golius, Amsterdam 1669), p. 10
- 6. al-Farghani, Elementa astronomica (Golius, Amsterdam 1669), p. 100