Astronomy: Space Systems introduces Grade 5 students to real-world examples and fundamental concepts that will be explored in greater depth in later grades. Students will learn about the system of planets that orbit our sun. introduces gravity as a pull “downward” toward the center of Earth. Students read about the brightness of stars and the relationship between distance and absolute brightness. They will read about and investigate patterns of day/night, shadow movement, and seasonal changes.

While reading Astronomy: Space Systems students will learn that much of what we know about the universe comes from various kinds of exploratory tools, such as telescopes and space probes, as well as human spaceflight. Readers will comprehend that we are part of a large solar system, which lies within in an even larger galaxy that is but one of many millions of galaxies in the universe. The sun is the closest of all stars to Earth. The sun appears to be the brightest star, but that is only because it is the closest from our perspective on our planet’s surface. Other stars farther away have a greater absolute brightness than the sun.

As students read Astronomy: Space Systems, they relate the shape and motion of Earth, as well as the force of gravity, to our understanding of our solar system. Earth rotates on its axis, which takes one day. Earth also orbits the sun, which takes one year. These movements can be discerned from evidence such as the transition from day to night, the changing location of shadows during the day, and the slow shifting of the stars in the sky during the year.