Monthly Archives: January 2013

Switching to Light Speed

Posted on January 27, 2013 by brendanfeeley

What is the fastest thing that Humans have ever built?  According to Aerospace Web, the fastest man-made object were the Helios probes built and launched into space to study the Sun.  These orbited the Sun in elliptical fashion, allowing them to zoom around the Sun at very high speeds.  These are said to have reached […] Continue reading →

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Total Solar Eclipses: Cool Now, Terrifying Then

Posted on January 27, 2013 by zvgio

The term umbraphile is not a common term found in most peoples’ lexicons, and even those who parse in Greek may be confused by the translation of “shadow-lover.” However, despite their rarity, umbraphiles do exist, and the shadow which they love is the one the moon casts on the Earth during a total solar eclipse. […] Continue reading →

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If Light Travelled Really Fast…

Posted on January 27, 2013 by ibrahim2016

According to prevailing theories in Physics, the speed of light, denoted by ‘c’ is a universal constant. It means that it is intrinsically related to the very nature of the universe. We exist because we are the culmination of almost fourteen billion years of conformation to this value by every single one of the atoms […] Continue reading →

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The Size of the Universe

Posted on January 27, 2013 by marknshirleyvu

I will always be amazed by the size of the Universe as we know it.  The above photo (along with a little bit of zooming) is a perfect illustration of the unbelievable vastness of our “observable universe.”  Our observable universe consists of all objects whose light has reached us on Earth, and is roughly 14 […] Continue reading →

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Ophiucus: The Thirteenth Zodiac?

Posted on January 27, 2013 by jacob933

Two years ago, an astronomer from Minnesota named Parke Kunkle informed the American public that not only  had the date ranges for each of the zodiac signs changed, but that a 13th Zodiac sign had been added called Ophiuchus. This became big news very quickly and elicited very heated responses from many astrologers. One astrologer […] Continue reading →

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Precession and the Poles

Posted on January 27, 2013 by mirandaskunz

Pretty much everyone in the North Hemisphere knows about the North Star and how it can be used in navigation. The North Star is such a familiar subject to me that I was surprised when I learned that the North pole does not always point toward the North Star. As we have learned in astro […] Continue reading →

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Our Vast Universe

Posted on January 27, 2013 by CJ Jeon

When reading up the size of our earth, our solar system, and ultimately, our universe, my mind was completely blown. The following video shows just how small our earth really is, compared to other planets in our solar system, our sun, and other stars in the constellations that we can see at night. Just to […] Continue reading →

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Google Sky Map

Posted on January 27, 2013 by AlanL

Once I first learned about the Google Sky Map app I was amazed at how it worked and its capabilities. It uses the date and time and the phone’s GPS and compass to determine where you are and where you’re looking to create a star chart that you can interact with. If there is something […] Continue reading →

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Precession: The Great Year

Posted on January 27, 2013 by burnspress

As humans on Earth there are two celestial motions that affect us most obviously. Earths diurnal motion, its rotation on its axis responsible for day and night, and Earth’s revolution around the sun, determining our yearly cycles (winter, spring, blooming, hibernation, migration). A third and less obvious celestial motion is precession. Its time scale hides […] Continue reading →

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Precession

Posted on January 27, 2013 by williamcpower

For my second blog I would like to discuss the precession of the Earth’s axis and how it could relate to possible climate change. We learned in class that seasons are caused because of the tilt of the earth. The till causes light to be more direct on a hemisphere during particular parts of the […] Continue reading →

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