Daily Archives: January 25, 2014

Is it a parallax or only one? ;)

Posted on January 25, 2014 by juliamac17

So one feature of star observation that has allowed us to figure out that we’re not the center of the universe is this really neat and slightly tricky idea of stellar parallax. It’s the phenomenon where based on our position in orbit, a star may appear to have moved based on the stars behind it. […] Continue reading →

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I swear the universe doesn’t even know I exist

Posted on January 25, 2014 by juliamac17

So I was watching this video called Powers of Ten, yes? And this video takes you from looking at a view that’s 1m^2 and then increases that by a factor of ten every ten seconds (so after the first ten seconds you’re looking at 10m^2, then 100m^2, and so on and so forth), and by […] Continue reading →

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Star Walk: Planetarium in Your Pocket

Posted on January 25, 2014 by hollyreichert

When looking up into the sky at night, usually I can’t identify all the constellations above.  The Star Walk app knows where you are and tells you what stars and planets are above you.  You can hold it up wherever you are and it is like having a mobile planetarium.  Even in the city where […] Continue reading →

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Humans: Only Around for a Blink of an Eye

Posted on January 25, 2014 by hollyreichert

The universe has been around for 13.8 billion years.  In the grand scheme of things, this means that human life has only been around for the blink of an eye.  When 13.8 billion years is put into one calendar year, homo erectus does not appear until 10:48 pm on December 31.  All of our human […] Continue reading →

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