https://clutejournals.com/index.php/JAESE <p><strong>Published since 2014</strong><br>ISSN 2374-6246 (print); ISSN 2374-6254 (online)<br>The Journal of Astronomy & Earth Sciences Education (JAESE) publishes refereed papers that significantly contribute to the scholarly understanding of cutting edge issues across science education.</p> Clute Institute en-US Journal of Astronomy & Earth Sciences Education (JAESE) 2374-6246 https://clutejournals.com/index.php/JAESE/article/view/10414 <p>The ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus was the first astronomer to make a reasonable estimate of the distances of the sun and moon from the earth. In his treatise, “On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon”, he proposed the “hypothesis 5” saying, "That the breadth of the shadow is two moons" in a lunar eclipse, without any argument. It may be estimated by measuring the size of the arc of Earth’s shadow (umbra) projecting on the lunar surface or other means. By studying how students interact with these concepts, we now present a new method to do the evaluation, showing that according to the time of the first contact and the third contact as well as the positions of the two contact points on lunar surface, the ratio of the breadth of Earth’s shadow to lunar diameter can be found to have a consistent value of around 2.85. The procedure can be designed to be a middle school science experiment to help students understand the motions of the Earth and Moon.</p> Jian Li Copyright (c) 2022 2022-01-11 2022-01-11 9 2 17 24 10.19030/jaese.v9i2.10414 https://clutejournals.com/index.php/JAESE/article/view/10415 <p>In teaching the history of astronomy, mosaics found at ancient synagogues in the Middle East are invaluable. The ancient Zodiac signs forming such mosaics are related to the seasons indicating the fact that the precession of the Earth axis had been neglected or even unknown. We demonstrate that the sage’s derivations of the patriarch’s ages in the chronology of the Septuagint version of the bible correspond to the signs of the zodiac, an assumption supported, for example, by the inscription found in the ruins of the Jewish synagogue in Ein-Gedi. Through our astronomical calculations we solve the sun-moon conjunctions occurring at the beginning of the zodiac signs – at the Vernal Equinox - considering the real sun's orbit. Since the Septuagint version of the bible is assumed to have been translated into Greek in the 3rd century BC from an earlier existing Hebrew source, the fact that the ages of the patriarchs correspond to the observations of the real sun's motion, leads to the conclusion that the Septuagint version is an important book of the history of science. As a result of our findings, the bible can, thus, be regarded as one of the most ancient detailed scientific teaching sources leading to improved astronomical models which determined the planetary orbits.</p> Ariel Cohen Copyright (c) 2022 2022-11-01 2022-11-01 9 2 25 38 10.19030/jaese.v9i2.10415