Monthly Archives: April 2013

Creating Life

Posted on April 9, 2013 by charlesbcochran

You might think this is Earth, but this is something much more intriguing……… Many years from now, humanity will be threatened by a plethora of factors that will cause the inevitable. Humans will have to seek refuge somewhere other than … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Finding Exoplanets – Gravitational Microlensing

Posted on April 8, 2013 by charlesbcochran

The search for exoplanets is difficult. Even more so when the method of gravitational microlensing is used. Back in the day, Einstein proved the existence of gravitational lensing. Basically what happens is when a distant and close star are aligned … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Why Pluto is Not a Planet

Posted on April 8, 2013 by indianwm

This informative video talks about Pluto, from discovery to why it is no longer considered a planet, but a dwarf planet. The discovery of Pluto was in 1930 by a man named Clyde Tombaugh in Arizona. Since this time Pluto has been classified as a Dwarf Planet. It lays in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune […] Continue reading →

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Green Peas Shed Light On Universe Beginnings

Posted on April 7, 2013 by wherrysg

Image Source In 2007, astronomers made a discovery of what they called the Green Pea galaxies. These galaxies are those that are undergoing high rates of star formation and help us understand reionization–which is an extremely important process in the development of our universe. Reionization by definition is “the process that reionized matter in the […] Continue reading →

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A Black Hole’s Diet

Posted on April 7, 2013 by wherrysg

Source Incredible! While studying a distant galaxy, astronomers noticed a bright flare of X-rays coming from another galaxy that happened to be in their field of view. Upon closer look, they discovered that it was actually a black hole ‘eating up’ what they believe to be either an extremely large planet or a smaller brown […] Continue reading →

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Saturn’s Rings

Posted on April 7, 2013 by hannahladendorf13

     I think I speak for a lot of people (or maybe I don’t) but I honestly thought Saturn’s rings were legit rings, made up of a solid material that didn’t break and rotated around Saturn.   It is amazing … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Triton: The Unexpected Volcanic World

Posted on April 7, 2013 by hannahladendorf13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eXac1DGcjM When we think of volcanic activity, we expect molten lava to come out.  However, this video from the Science Channel explains that instead of lava, Triton actually produces nitrogen gas to the atmospheric as well as “moon dust.”   As … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Why is Europa so Awesome?

Posted on April 7, 2013 by fathomingthestars

A lot of the science community is excited about the possibility of life of Mars.  But, as we know, the vast majority of Mars’s atmosphere is composed of carbon dioxide and what water it does have is frozen in its polar ice caps.  An arguably much more exciting destination in our own Solar System is […] Continue reading →

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Exoplanets

Posted on April 3, 2013 by juliettealper

Our lecture on exoplanets in class today reminded me of an article that I saw a few months ago about the discovery of new exoplanets. After looking deeper into it, I realized that just a month ago scientists discovered 2,700 objects that could potentially be considered planets. Not only is this a possibility, but around […] Continue reading →

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Dark Matter Discovered?

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Megan C

Scientists announced today that they may have finally found dark matter. Dark matter is the invisible matter making up most of the universe, but scientists can’t see it because it emits no light.  Scientists only know it exists because dark matter’s gravity bends light – gravitational lensing – and because stars are orbiting in galaxies […] Continue reading →

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