Culmination Blog

Posted on April 30, 2024 by The Cosmic Traveler

This will be my final blog for this course. I just want to say that I learned so much, and I am grateful for what I learned. My eyes have been opened up, and I learned so much information that I never knew. My favorite part of this course was the actual observing of celestial bodies. It was my first time seeing Jupiter that day, and I was just in awe that we are in the same solar system as that gaseous beauty. This course really taught just how small and insignificant we appear to be compared to the universe. I am just a tiny human on a tiny world moving through the vacuum of space. But we are all tiny humans on a tiny world moving through the vacuum of space, so I guess that makes us somewhat special.

by me

Here is the picture of Jupiter I took on my phone. Hopefully I can purchase a telescope to get a better looking picture, and maybe even look at the other planets.

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Immortal Water Bears?

Posted on April 30, 2024 by The Cosmic Traveler

by Science News

So what is a water bear and how is it immortal?

Water bears, also known as Tardigrades, are eight-legged micro animals that can survive extreme conditions. Their size is typically 0.05mm-1.2mm. Water bears can survive in space, radioactive environments, near volcanoes, and even at the bottom of the ocean. Animals that can survive in such harsh conditions are known as extremophiles. But how is it possible for an animal so small to take on so much from nature? Some researchers speculate it is because of a special protein they produce called Dsup, short for damage suppressor. How it works is it binds to DNA and shields it from forms of oxygen that are reactive. When this happens, it prevents DNA damage from x-rays and ultraviolet radiation. There are other animals that can also survive such extreme conditions, but water bears have been known to be the toughest of them all.

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We are Lucky

Posted on April 29, 2024 by John Newell

We should be grateful for our place in exploration.

Sometimes I get sad, and mope around upset that I was born at the wrong time. The phrase goes something like “born too late to explore the Earth, too early to explore the stars.” And it is so easy to get caught up in it. But then, I stop to think. And, honestly, the amount of amazing things in our lives, just in regards to space exploration and learning about the universe, are almost overwhelming. It is essentially a coincidence that we have solar eclipses. There will exist a time on Earth in which the moon will no longer be large enough in the sky to block out the sun. And while we aren’t around late enough to explore the stars, we have witnessesed the first rockets landing back on Earth after launch – and the best telescope technology ever – and the first picture of a black hole – and the first detection of gravitational waves – and the first discovery of exoplanets. We need to be grateful. We are exploring so much, it’s easy to miss. How amazing!

SpaceX Falcon Heavy – the most powerful rocket in human history

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Blog Blog 8: Culminating Blog!

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Jonas Kobza

Overall, this class has greatly improved my knowledge of space and the solar system.  I learned some useful (and fun) skills such as finding the north star, and the increased perspective I now have on both the solar system and the universe will be invaluable as we explore and travel more into space. I have learned the importance of being well informed about topics in space, as they often have parallels to things happening here on the Earth. I remember reading the first article by Neil Degrasse Tyson at the beginning of the textbook, talking about the importance of looking into space. He says: “The cosmic perspective enables us to grasp, in the same thought, the large and the small.” The importance of this class goes beyond the coolness of looking at Jupiter’s moons through a telescope or learning about Pluto, it’s about putting our world into perspective, and to that end, this class has accomplished this goal. Next semester, I am taking astrophysics to close out my physics minor. I am eager to learn more about our universe.

Picture of Earth from Saturn. Source: European Space Agency
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Light Has Momentum?

Posted on April 29, 2024 by John Newell

How is that possible – And how can we take advantage?

We know that light has no mass. And, according to classical mechanics, momentum is given by 1/2mv^2; in other words, according to classical mechanics, light cannot have momentum. But, as we know, light is different — and oh so interesting! By virtue of energy transfer, light creates the phenomenon of radiation pressure, which results in momentum being exerted on objects which are struck by the photons. The upshot of all of this is, that with clever engineering, and a massive surface for which the photons to strike, we can actually propel a spacecraft using only light! A square sail with sides 800m long can result in a force of 5N. This might seem incredibly small, but over time, a force as tiny as this can result in sufficiently accumulated acceleration to reach, surprisingly, incredible speeds. We will need to get creative to explore the universe. Solar sails might be the beginning of something truly incredible.

Solar Sail, Scientific American
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Our Neighbor?: The Andromeda Galaxy

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Garrett

Image of the Andromeda Galaxy 1888

For this blog I wanted to talk about The Andromeda Galaxy. Other than it being the closest galaxy to our Milky Way I really didn’t know much about it. The Andromeda galaxy was first photographed in 1888 by Issac Roberts (picture above). Andromeda is located over 2 million light-years away. It is set to collide with the Milky Way in 4.5 billion years. I wonder what happens when two galaxies collide? The Andromeda galaxy is significantly larger than the Milky Way, cotanting about one trillion stars, compared to the 100-400 billion in the Milky Way. Andromeda is thought to have a colossal black hole in the center, much like the Milky Way’s Sagittarius A*. I actually did not know our galaxy had a blackhole at the center of it until now! Another cool thing is that observations of Andromeda have provided evidence for the existence of dark matter. The galaxy’s rotational speed indicates that there is a lot more mass present than what we can see, presumed to be dark matter. As of now we can’t observe the planets within the Andromeda galaxy, due to technological limitations, but I wonder if there are any habitable Earth-like planets there and if so how many? Even if we could, we would be observing them 2 million years in the past, so probably best to search for life a little bit closer to home.

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Blog 7: Space Propulsion

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Jonas Kobza

Though designing and building a rocket is a very complex endeavor, most people have a pretty good idea of what makes them fly: Burn a whole lot of fuel to produce thrust. This method does a great job of getting a rocket up to a high speed, relative to our planet and the solar system. However, these rockets are nowhere near the speed needed to travel to other planets. The problem is that rockets need tons of fuel in order to generate enough thrust to get going really fast, but this fuel is heavy, and heavier things accelerate slower. 

There have been several proposed solutions to this problem, and all of them are pretty crazy. First, scientists have proposed creating a ship that produces thrust by detonating small nuclear bombs behind the spacecraft; these bombs would push the spaceship, which is shielded by a protective plate, forward. The scientists that proposed this design calculated that if one million bombs are detonated behind a ship, it could get to alpha centauri in about one century, which is pretty quick relative to the speeds we can produce now. Another idea is to use antimatter annihilation, which converts all of an atom’s atomic mass into energy. This would produce a vast amount of energy, but the technology required is more in the realm of science fiction rather than reality at this point. The general takeaway is: If were going to get to another star in less than thousands of years, we need to find some new crazy sources of energy.

Artists rendering of an antimatter engine. Source: Medium
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Are We Living in a Black Hole???

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Justin Kim

While this question seems ridiculous, we shouldn’t dismiss the theory outright. Maybe there are lessons to be extracted out of this thought experiment. Or maybe our universe truly exists within a black hole.

The theory is called Schwarzschild cosmology which posits that our universe lies within the black hold of a larger parent universe. The theory opens the door for an infinite number of universes. The problem with testing the theory however is the limitations of the laws of physics. We know that nothing that goes beyond a black hole’s event horizon can come back, not even light. This means that all relevant data from within a black hole could never make it out to any observer outside of the black hole’s event horizon. We do know what phenomena would be experienced if our universe was in a black hole such as the slowing of time and stretching of matter which we do not seem to experience. This may mean that the black hole that we reside in is so large that these distortions are unnoticeable by humans, even with the most finely tuned instruments. It can generally be agreed upon that with our current understandings of physics and our level of technological development, we will never be able to answer this question concretely- just as we cannot answer whether or not we are living in a simulation. These considerations seem far fetched but our inability to answer them with confidence should humble us. The vastness of the universe has become much more evident to me. We learned about how the New Horizons mission took nine years to finally reach Pluto and that is just within our own solar system. It is fascinating to think about the distances beyond our solar system and even beyond our own universe.

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The Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Jack Abrams
The Drake Equation

One of the most exhilarating topics in astronomy to me is the search for extraterrestrial life. The Drake Equation is one way to estimate the number of active and communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way. This equation was formulated in 1961 by Frank Drake to stimulate intellectual discussion about the factors that influence extraterrestrial life development. The equation contains several variables such as the rate of stars suitable for development of intelligent life, the number of stars that have planetary systems, and the number of planets per star system that could have an environment suitable for life, among others. 

Additionally, the Seager Equation, proposed by Dr. Sara Seager, is a parallel version of the Drake equation to estimate the number of habitable planets in the universe. THe equation contains variables such as planets with biosignature gasses and factors in the star’s type and planetary atmosphere to predict whether a planet is hospitable for life. Therefore the Drake equation could be used to estimate the number of civilizations on other planets that are similar to our human civilization, whereas the Seager Equation could approximate the number of extraterrestrial life such as microbes or extremophiles!

NASA’s missions, like the Kepler Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope are designed to find planets in the habitable zone of their stars and use the principles laid out by these two equations to prioritize what star systems they observe. Looking forward, the continued advancement in exoplanet research and astrobiology will bring us closer than ever to answering the question if we are alone in the universe. I am very hopeful that we will be able to find extraterrestrial life in my lifetime, but for now this search will undoubtedly inspire my continued interest in the cosmos.

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Blog 8: Culmination of the Course

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Seth Creech

Picture: Potentially viable planets visualization

ASTRO 2110 was my fourth astronomy class that I have taken here at Vanderbilt, and it was also one of my favorites. Astronomy is seen by many as interesting but irrelevant, so it was nice getting a deeper understanding of the most relevant parts of the universe to us by focusing on the Solar System. I enjoyed learning about planets and their moons in a more accurate and in-depth way than I did in middle and high school, and I feel much more well-versed in topics that are related to our Solar System.

My favorite topic that we discussed was looking at our discovery methods for other planets. I loved looking at the graphs of starlight over time, as it felt like a puzzle that I was solving to find the types of planets and the size of their orbit. Even though it was relatively simple, it was fun to think about the fact that it is not that much more complicated for scientists, they just have to collect the information that I just got from the graph.

Since I am minoring in Astronomy, I will be taking Astrophysics next semester. I am very excited to take some of the principles from this class and put them to mathematical use in that course. It will be very interesting to see similar topics in even more depth than what we did in this class.

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