Daily Archives: February 19, 2013

Conservation of Angular Momentum and Kepler’s Second Law

Posted on February 19, 2013 by YanruChen

Conservation laws are very important laws for celestial objects in the universe. Without conservation laws, all these celestial objects will not obey predictable motions as they do in this universe. I am going to talk about conservation of angular momentum in this post. Any objects orbiting or rotating have angular momentum. To change angular momentum […] Continue reading →

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Dark Matter and the Missing Mass Problem

Posted on February 19, 2013 by rtjobe

We have a huge problem. Like a we-seem-to-be-missing-95%-of-the-universe kind of problem.  If you look at the way that galaxies are constructed you will notice that they are very bright in the center and tend to get dimmer as you travel outward, indicating there must be more mass in the center than the outside.  This would […] Continue reading →

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Using Paintballs to Deflect Asteroids

Posted on February 19, 2013 by AlanL

As you probably know on Friday February 15th there were two meteors heading Earth’s way. One of which crashed in Russia injuring over 1,000 people and the other missed Earth by 17,000 miles. The one that hit Russia was only 1.5 the size of a school bus while the other was 3 times that. Obviously […] Continue reading →

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Neutrino Detectors

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Will K

Over the past several decades telescope technology has improved dramatically. Not only are we able to view the galaxy from massive observatories on Earth, but we can capture light through telescopes orbiting in space. Although these advances have allowed us to detect light from many different ranges across the electromagnetic spectrum, telescopes cannot detect all […] Continue reading →

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Archeoastronomy and Stonehenge

Posted on February 19, 2013 by rtjobe

Archeoastronomy is not as the name at first implies a study of ancient astronomy, but rather the study of how astronomy affected early civilizations. In a sense, it is a combination of astronomy, anthropology, and history with respect to ancient cultures. Archeoastronomers look at a variety of types of evidence in their efforts to determine […] Continue reading →

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Physics of Gravity

Posted on February 19, 2013 by YanruChen

What is physics? I have been studying physics since elementary school, but I was never really taught about the definition of physics. My personal understanding of physics is that it is a study of the law of the nature. The nature of physics is truly mysterious. Why do things obey the same law? Why can […] Continue reading →

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Archeoastronomy

Posted on February 19, 2013 by AlanL

Over the summer I was in Mexico and visited some Mayan ruins in Tulum and Chichen Itza. It was incredible to hear all about how the cities were built with regard to the sun’s movement in the sky. In Chichen Itza, there is an observatory where they had 20 sight lines each marking a different […] Continue reading →

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Dark Matter vs Dark Energy

Posted on February 19, 2013 by fathomingthestars

In my previous post, I wrote about dark matter and how we can infer its existence through gravitational lensing.  Here, I will more fully explore what dark matter is and what dark energy is. Dark matter, as the name implies, is matter that is dark and cannot be seen.  “Seen” here does not mean visible […] Continue reading →

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DETECTING OXYGEN!

Posted on February 19, 2013 by sharpew

According to a New Scientist article from FEBRUARY 19TH, 2013, a new telescope in Chile might be able to detect oxygen on exoplanets (planets outside our solar system). This means that it would be able to detect alien life!! According to the article, our currently developed telescopes can identify the different elements of exoplanet’s atmospheres by studying the substances that absorb […] Continue reading →

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Happy 540th Birthday Copernicus!

Posted on February 19, 2013 by juliettealper

Today, February 19, happens to be Nicolaus Copernicus’s 540th birthday. Google honored him by making their icon a heliocentric model. I thought it was fitting to talk a little about his accomplishments. One of the most interesting facts about Copernicus was that he completed all of his observations with his naked eye. Copernicus was one […] Continue reading →

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