Daily Archives: January 26, 2013

Google’s Sky Map

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Will K

When looking around for astronomy applications for Android I came across Google’s Sky Map. This is a popular stargazing application that is free on the Google Play store. One of the best features of this app is the location and sky tracking. This feature will track exactly where your phone is pointing in the sky. […] Continue reading →

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The Speed of Light

Posted on January 26, 2013 by juliettealper

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ The speed of light is a fascinating yet confusion concept. People frequently hear the term “lightyear” and assume that it is a measurement of time, but instead it is a measurement of distance. A lightyear is defined as how far light travels in a year. If someone was able to travel at the speed […] Continue reading →

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Scale, Relativity, and the Power of 10

Posted on January 26, 2013 by sharpew

For my first official blog post, I’d like to write about the Powers of Ten video, and the subsequent site I came across because of it. Although I have seen the Powers of Ten video in a class several years ago, watching it again filled me with the same sense of curiosity and amazement as […] Continue reading →

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Faster than the Speed of Light

Posted on January 26, 2013 by zvgio

Everyone knows that the speed of light is fast; “faster than the speed of light” is a common colloquialism. Thanks to almighty science, we know that light travels at 299,792,548 meters per second, compared to 27m/s for a car traveling 60mph. Due to human perception times, a speed of this magnitude makes light’s travel seem […] Continue reading →

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The night sky…

Posted on January 26, 2013 by astrdylan

(click the photo to link to the source!) Notice anything strange about the night sky in this photo? For one, you won’t find Polaris (the North Star)…have you caught it yet? This is the night sky as seen from Mt. Cook in New Zealand. As you’d expect, because the vantage point of someone in the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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The Speed of Light

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Will K

Even looking through a telescope, outer space can be very daunting. There is a seemingly endless distance between us and even the closest stars. At 39,900,000,000,000 kilometers away, the nearest star to our own Sun is Proxima Centauri of the Alpha Centauri star system. This distance is so enormous that it takes 4.22 years for […] Continue reading →

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Powers of Ten and orders of magnitude

Posted on January 26, 2013 by astrdylan

For my first “real” blog post, I chose to check out the Powers of Ten video. I was interested in this prompt in particular because in my geomorphology class, we’ve been discussing orders of magnitude as a means of talking about geological concepts like subsidence, uplift, and the residence time of sediments, so I thought … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Planets

Posted on January 26, 2013 by surujdeka

If you have the slightest interest in astronomy, I found this great app for iOS for observing the planets in our solar system and tracking their location throughout the day. This app is great for observing all the planets in the sky at the current time and what constellations they are near. You can view […] Continue reading →

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Just what exactly can we call “big”?

Posted on January 26, 2013 by surujdeka

The Universe is almost like a magician in a way. Just when us puny humans seem to grasp an aspect of its nature (or pretend to anyway), it laughs at us and shows us a glimpse of something that leaves us in awe of its vastness. Take a look at this picture above you. Only […] Continue reading →

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