Monthly Archives: January 2014

The Vast Universe

Posted on January 27, 2014 by eschellhase

The Universe is immense. When we look up into the sky at night we can see about 2000 stars. These stars are all native to the Milky Way Galaxy. Our galaxy in and of itself contains 300 billion stars. If we use a telescope we  see more stars in our own galaxy and  beyond the […] Continue reading →

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Stellarium

Posted on January 27, 2014 by mariah0407

Learning about and using Stellarium has been great fun! I have always enjoyed looking at the stars.  As a child, I used to go to the planetarium numerous times a year.  Additionally, one year for my birthday, my brother got me a star through the International Star Registry.  Now that I have learned how to […] Continue reading →

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The Cosmic Calendar

Posted on January 27, 2014 by mariah0407

Something that caught my attention while reading was the Cosmic Calendar.  It is truly amazing how looking at how the world evolved, from a perspective of a year, can help one’s understanding.  One of the most fascinating things was the evolution of humans.  Early life forms didn’t even come into existence until September 22nd, and […] Continue reading →

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Big big numbers make no sense don’t they?

Posted on January 27, 2014 by ilman

We all know the universe is 13.8 billion years old. But… How long ago was 13.8 billion years ago? How about 65.5 million years ago, when the dinosaurs die out? How long ago was that? Ourselves, being such small creatures with so short a lifespan, how could we comprehend the largeness of such numbers? Well, […] Continue reading →

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The Night Sky:Sentinel Paranal:VLT Timelapse

Posted on January 27, 2014 by zkorman

If only we could choose to speed up time, lay on our backs and watch the universe revolve around us…. okay, we’re rotating within a nearly static (relative to us) universe, but the effect remains the same. We can only really appreciate our night sky when we point our cameras and telescopes up to the … Continue reading The Night Sky:Sentinel Paranal:VLT Timelapse → Continue reading →

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The Scale of the Universe (Interactive)

Posted on January 27, 2014 by zkorman

(Scroll to zoom through the universe, magnitude of zoom at the bottom right, click on things for a short description) This program is designed to give us a chance to fathom the scale of our universe relative to things we can fathom. At the beginning we see ourselves, humans. Scroll just for a second and […] Continue reading →

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Beyond The Speed of Light?

Posted on January 27, 2014 by joshkphilips

How concrete are our laws of physics? Could there be a way to bend the laws and essentially travel beyond the speed of light? Could such an ability open the possibilities for interstellar space travel? These are some of the questions that surround the intriguing idea of wormholes. Two wormholes could in theory act as […] Continue reading →

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Hybrid Solar Eclipse

Posted on January 27, 2014 by hughavanheesewijk

Eclipses can be very beautiful things. We can all go online and look up images of solar eclipses taken from Earth. You can either see a total solar eclipse, where the sun in completely covered by the moon, or an annular where the sun is only partially covered by the moon because the moon is […] Continue reading →

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The Speed of Light is Pretty Speedy

Posted on January 27, 2014 by hughavanheesewijk

Everyone appreciates illustrations of any sort that put very large things into perspective. These illustrations can come in many different forms, but I think that the most effective ones are the ones that use comparisons. These comparison illustrations can take something that is absolutely massive and crunch it into something almost manageable. This is a […] Continue reading →

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Blog Post #2: Solstices and Equinoxes

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Lauren

As in the olden days, the sun was used to measure and chart the passing of time.  The sun is the life-source for all living things here on earth and is a vital part of the ecosystem.  The fact that the length, intensity, and the spot of the sun’s glow on earth determines the seasons, […] Continue reading →

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