Indoor eclipse theater
25 minutes · Low-power flashlight · Two different-size balls · Paper · An adult helper
Your investigation
- Indoors, ask an adult to aim a low-power flashlight away from eyes. Use it only as a pretend Sun.
- Arrange flashlight, small Moon ball, and larger Earth ball in a line. Find where the Moon ball’s shadow falls.
- Switch to flashlight, Earth ball, Moon ball. Sketch where Earth’s shadow falls.
- Move the Moon ball above the line and note why the shadow misses. Mark all diagrams “not to scale.”
Think, draw, explain
Which object is in the middle for a solar eclipse?
Why does a full Moon not cause an eclipse every month?
Grown-up guide & possible answers
- For a solar eclipse the Moon lies between the Sun and Earth. For a lunar eclipse Earth lies between the Sun and Moon.
- The Moon’s orbit is tilted, so most monthly alignments miss the necessary shadow path. This is an indoor geometry activity, not instructions for looking at the Sun.