Cultures in different times and places have identified different patterns of stars and made up stories about them. When our part of the Earth faces the sun, it is day. As the hours pass, our part of the Earth begins to turn away from the sun, and night falls. If you were to draw a line in the sky tracing the sun's path through it, that imaginary line is called the ecliptic. An ellipsis is a circle that has been stretched out-imagine a round rubber band lengthened and stretched out.
Equinoxes are the two days out of the year when the day and the night are of equal length.
They signal the beginning of spring and fall. Polaris has been handy as a navigational tool to indicate due north. Any body that revolves around the sun or other stars. Our sun has nine major planets. The Earth has a very large satellite-the Moon.