Measuring the Diameter of the Sun

Ninth graders study the sun and its distance from Earth.  In this Sun's diameter lesson plan students examine how measurement data permits accurate measurement of the sun's diameter. 

Scientists could measure the diameter of the sun before they knew its distance. Scholars construct a simple mirror box to measure the diameter for themselves. They compare this measurement with the official size, listed in a textbook,...

Starting with a paragraph of information presenting the different ways we can observe planetary objects, pupils work through these instructions to see how they can observe and measure angles.  Your class will discover how these angles...

In this space science worksheet, students find the correct measurements using the tools provided in this lab experiment. The second page is used to record data.

In this sun's diameter instructional activity, students use a photograph taken by the SOHO satellite of the sun showing a change in diameter from one month to another. Students find the average diameter of the sun, they determine the...

In this Sun and Moon worksheet, students solve 6 problems about the angular scale of the images given, the size of the features on the images and the area of the features shown.

In this sun worksheet, students use a Sunspotter to observe the rotation of the sun by identifying the presence of sunspots and watching them rotate over time. Students calculate how many days it takes to see the sunspots they observe in...

Young scholars complete mathematical calculations to determine that the sun's diameter is about 100 times that of Earth's diameter. In this sun and Earth lesson plan, students complete worksheets provided.

During the less than two minutes of this homemade video, the videographer attempts to show that Earth's diameter can be computed by timing the setting of the sun from two different heights above ground. He doesn't provide the formula...

Students conduct an experiment to measure the diameter of the sun. In this astronomy instructional activity,  students construct a simple equipment to collect scientific data. They calculate the sun's diameter using a given formula.