Questions Answers

● The Earth is not a perfect sphere but is instead more

like a slightly squashed sphere called an ellipsoid. An
ellipsoid looks like a basketball when someone is sitting
on it. Instead of being perfectly round, it is squashed
down from top to bottom and bulged out from side to
1. What is the shape of the earth?
side. Because of mountains and valleys on Earth’s
surface, the Earth isn’t a perfect ellipsoid either, but an
ellipsoid is a good enough approximation of Earth’s
overall shape. It is also sometimes called a geoid which
denotes the earth's unique shape.

● Aphelion is the point of the Earth’s orbit that is

farthest away from the Sun. This occurs around July
4 every year
● Perihelion is the point of the Earth’s orbit that is
nearest to the Sun. This occurs around January 3
every year
● The words come from Ancient Greek, in which helios
means “Sun,” apo means “far,” and peri means “close.”

2. Describe the terms Aphelion, and

Perihelion.

● The subtropics are geographic and climate zones

located between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of
3. What is a subtropical region? Capricorn and the 40th parallel in both
hemispheres. Subtropical climate regions can exist at
high elevations within the tropics, such as across the
Mexican Plateau and in Vietnam and southern Taiwan.
 ● The 180th meridian or antimeridian is the meridian
180° both east and west of the Prime Meridian, with
4. What is an antimeridian? which it forms a great circle dividing the earth into the
Western and Eastern Hemispheres. It is common to
both east longitude and west longitude.

● Greenwich Mean Time or GMT is the clock time at the

Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. It is not
affected by Summer Time (Daylight Saving Time) clock
changes.
● When the sun is at its highest point exactly above the
Prime Meridian, it is 12: 00 noon at Greenwich.
● The Greenwich Meridian (Prime Meridian or 0°
Degrees Longitude) marks the starting point of every
Time Zone of the time zone map.

5. What is Greenwich Mean Time?

● A satellite is a moon, planet, or machine that orbits

a planet or star. An object in an orbit is called a
satellite.
● For example, Earth is a satellite because it orbits the
6. What is a satellite? sun. Likewise, the moon is a satellite because it orbits
Earth.
● A satellite can be natural, like the Moon, or
human-made. Satellites can travel around planets or
around stars such as our Sun.

● Lithosphere, rigid, rocky outer layer of the Earth,

7. What is the Lithosphere?
consisting of the crust and the solid outermost layer of
 the upper mantle. It extends to a depth of about 60
miles (100 km). It is broken into about a dozen
separate, rigid blocks, or plates.

● The cryosphere is an all-encompassing term for those

portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid
8. What is the Cryosphere?
form, including sea ice, lake ice, river ice, snow cover,
glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen ground.

● Biosphere, a relatively thin life-supporting stratum

of Earth’s surface, extending from a few kilometres
into the atmosphere to the deep-sea vents of the
9. What is the biosphere? ocean. The biosphere is a global ecosystem composed
of living organisms (biota) and the abiotic
(non-living) factors from which they derive energy
and nutrients.

● The temperate zone encompasses the areas of Earth

that lie between the tropical zone and the polar
zones. The temperate zone is sometimes called the
mid-latitudes because they exist roughly between
10. What is a temperate zone?
30 degrees and 60 degrees north and south
latitude. There is a greater variety in climates in the
temperate zone, but many regions can be classified as
either moist-continental or moist-subtropical.

● Hydrosphere, discontinuous layer of water at or

near Earth’s surface. It includes all liquid and frozen
surface waters, groundwater held in soil and rock, and
11. What is the Hydrosphere? atmospheric water vapour. It is the enormous volume of
water, in its various manifestations, that forms the
discontinuous layer, enclosing much of the terrestrial
surface, known as the hydrosphere.

Latitudes:
● Latitudes are imaginary circles parallel to the
Equator.
● The equator represents the zero degrees latitude.
12. What are latitudes and longitudes? Its distance from the equator to either of the poles is
one-fourth of a circle round the earth, it will measure
¼th of 360 degrees, i.e. 90°. Thus, 90 degrees north
latitude marks the North Pole and 90 degrees south
latitude marks the South Pole.
 Longitudes:
● Longitudes are the measurement of the distance from
the prime meridian. Meridians are imaginary lines
around the earth in a vertical orientation, joining the
north and the south pole. They are spaced away from
each other depending upon the angle they make from
the centre in a vertical axis.
● The meridian that runs through Greenwich, England, is
internationally accepted as the line of 0 degrees
longitude, or prime meridian.

● It is the gravitational force that causes the earth

to rotate on its axis. Earth's rotation is also
13. Why is the Earth rotating on its
affected by the gravitational pull of the moon.
axis?
Because of the moon, the spin of the Earth is slowing
down at a rate of about 1 millisecond per year.

● The equinoxes happen in March (about March 21)

and September (about September 23). These are
the days when the Sun is exactly above the Equator,
which makes day and night of equal length.
14. What is the equinox? So, in the Northern Hemisphere, you have
● Vernal equinox(about March 21): day and night of
equal length, marking the start of spring.
● Autumnal equinox(about September 23): day and
night of equal length, marking the start of autumn.
 ● The Moon's orbit around Earth is elliptical, with one side
closer to Earth than the other.
● As a result, the distance between the Moon and Earth
varies throughout the month and the year. On average,
the distance is about 382,900 kilometres (238,000
miles) from the Moon's centre to the centre of Earth.
● The point of the orbit closest to Earth is called
perigee, while the point farthest from Earth is known
as apogee.
● Perigee and Apogee refer to the distance from the
Earth to the Moon. A full moon at Perigee can appear
14 per cent larger to viewers on Earth. It can also be 30
15. What is apogee and perigee? per cent brighter than other Full Moons.

● The International Date Line functions as a “line of

demarcation” separating two consecutive calendar
dates.
16. What is the International Date Line?
● It was established in 1884 and it passes through the
mid-Pacific Ocean and roughly follows a 180 degrees
longitude north-south line on the Earth.
 Why is it not a straight line?

● Some groups of Islands (Polynesia, Melanesia,

Micronesia) fall on either side of the dateline. So, if the
dateline was straight, then the two regions of the same
Island would fall under different date zones.
● So to avoid any confusion of date, this line is drawn
through an area where the sea lies rather than
bifurcating any country or any land. Hence, the IDL is
drawn in a zigzag manner.

● A Milankovitch cycle is a cyclical movement related to

the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. There are three of
them: eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession.
According to the Milankovitch Theory, these three cycles
combine to affect the amount of solar heat that’s
incident on the Earth’s surface and subsequently
influence climatic patterns.

Eccentricity
● The path of the Earth’s orbit around the sun is not a
perfect circle, but an ellipse. This elliptical shape
17. What is the Milankovitch cycle?
changes from less elliptical (nearly a perfect circle) to
more elliptical and back, and is due to the gravitational
fields of neighbouring planets.

Axial Tilt
● We know the earth is spinning around its own axis,
which is the reason why we have night and day.
However, this axis is not upright. Rather, it tilts at
angles between 22.1-degrees and 24.5 degrees and
back. These angles are measured between the angle of
the axis to an imaginary line normal (perpendicular) to
 the Earth’s plane of orbit. A complete cycle for the axial
tilt lasts for about 41,000 years.

Precession
● Aside from the tilt, the axis also wobbles like a top. A
complete wobble cycle is more or less 26,000 years.
This motion is caused by tidal forces from the Sun and
Moon. Precession, as well as tilting, are the reasons
why regions near and at the poles experience very long
nights and very long days at certain times of the year.
For example, in Norway, the Sun never completely
descends beneath the horizon between late May to late
July.

● The day that the Earth's North Pole is tilted closest to

the sun is called the summer solstice. This is the
longest day (most daylight hours) of the year for people
living in the northern hemisphere. It is also the day that
the Sun reaches its highest point in the sky. It takes
place around 21st June.
● The winter solstice, or the shortest day of the year,
happens when the Earth's North Pole is tilted farthest
from the Sun. It takes place around 21st December.
18. What is the summer and winter
solstice?

● When Daylight Saving Time starts in the spring, our

clocks are set forward by a certain amount of time,
usually by 1 hour. This means that 1 hour is skipped,
and on the clock, the day of the DST transition has only
19. What is daylight saving time? 23 hours.
● Since DST switches usually occur at night to avoid
disrupting public life, they snatch away an hour of
our usual sleeping time, forcing us to adjust our
body clocks.

20. How many countries does the ● The Equator passes through 13 countries: Ecuador,
equator pass through? Colombia, Brazil, Sao Tome & Principe, Gabon,
 Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Maldives,
Indonesia and Kiribati.

Indian Standard Time (IST) is the time zone observed

throughout India. It is based on Longitude 82.5° E, which
passes near Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. It is 5 hours 30
minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), now
called the Universal Coordinated Time (UTC).
21. What is Indian Standard Time?
The IST passes through 5 States:
1. Uttar Pradesh
2. Madhya Pradesh
3. Chhattisgarh
4. Odisha
5. Andhra Pradesh
 ● The Big Bang Theory is also known as the ‘expanding
universe theory’. It is one of the most important
theories explaining the origin of the universe.
● It was Edwin Hubble, who provided evidence
regarding the expanding nature of the universe.
● It was observed that the expansion occurs in such a
way that the distance between the stars and the
22. Write a note on the Big bang
galaxies is increasing without any increase in the size of
theory.
the stars.
● With the benefit of improved telescopes, Hubble
proved that the light coming from these galaxies was
shifted a little towards the red end of the spectrum due
to the Doppler effect (known as “redshift”), which
indicated that the galaxies were moving away from us.
The explanation of the origin of the universe can be
summarized in the following steps:
● In the beginning, all matter was consolidated into a
single tiny ball (the concept of singularity) with an
infinite mass and a very high temperature.
● When the Big Bang took place around 13.7 billion years
ago it resulted in the explosion of the tiny ball and
eventually in the formation of the universe. The
expansion of the universe is still taking place but
at a slower rate.
● After 300,000 years the temperature of the universe
decreased to 4500 K which resulted in the formation of
atomic matter.

There have been several theories regarding the origin of the

universe but the Big Bang theory is the most widely accepted
one.