Monthly Archives: April 2015

Comet Brightness – Not Related to Test Scores

Posted on April 5, 2015 by dillonkoval

A comet is an icy Solar System body with very elliptical orbit that takes it close to the Sun on one end and far from the Sun on the other. When it gets close to the Sun it begins to outgas, forming a visible atmosphere called a coma and often also a tail. One noticeable […] Continue reading →

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Beyond Pluto

Posted on April 5, 2015 by matthewrbirnbaum

Not long after a couple of astronomers announced hints of a giant planet prowling beyond Pluto, a team in Spain says there may actually be two supersize planets hiding in the outer reaches of our solar system. After the discovery of a potential dwarf planet 2012 VP113 in March, astronomers started questioning the curiously aligned […] Continue reading →

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The Mystery of the Mass Extinction

Posted on April 5, 2015 by oliviasn

Before reading the section in Chapter 12 of the textbook on cosmic collisions (Section 12.4), I had not realized that there exists some controversy as to whether or not an impact killed the dinosaurs. I had always been taught that an asteroid hitting the Earth resulted in the mass extinction and had never considered that […] Continue reading →

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What would life be like on Pluto for humans?

Posted on April 5, 2015 by karenagrebenc

photo from space.com Above is an artist’s conception of what Pluto would look like if one could stand on one of the dwarf planet’s moons and stare back at Pluto.  But this article goes on to tell us what our experiences would be if we were to actually step foot on the surface of Pluto […] Continue reading →

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The Galilean Moons

Posted on April 5, 2015 by oliviasn

When I went out observing on the 24th Avenue Parking Garage the other night, every astronomical object that I saw through the telescope amazed me, but Jupiter especially captured my attention. I had never viewed Jupiter through a telescope before, and on this beautiful and mostly clear night, I was able to clearly see not […] Continue reading →

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Searching for intelligent life

Posted on April 5, 2015 by bryancm1

Humans have always fascinated themselves with the idea that maybe we aren’t so alone in the universe. We have made efforts to find extraterrestrials and so far turned up nothing. Is there any hope for them finding us first? A number of organized attempts have been made to let “others” know that we exist. The […] Continue reading →

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Jupiter’s volcanic moon: Io

Posted on April 5, 2015 by bryancm1

Io sports a surface temperature well below zero (around -130 degrees C). This is heavily contrasted by the fact that Io is also the most volcanically active body in our solar system. It is known to have over 400 currently active volcanoes. If you weren’t yet convinced about the effects of tidal heating, think about […] Continue reading →

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Voyager 2

Posted on April 5, 2015 by michellelei

Almost all of the information and pictures scientists have today from the outer planets is due to flyby missions such as NASA’s Voyager 2. As we learned in the last unit, flyby space probes are especially helpful because they can pass by and gather information on multiple planets within one single mission, and that is… Continue reading Voyager 2 Continue reading →

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Put a Ring on It

Posted on April 4, 2015 by michellelei

An interesting characteristic that all the jovian planets possess is their rings. The most remarkable and noticeable of these are Saturn’s, which extend hundreds of thousands of kilometers wide. However, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune all have rings as well, on a much smaller scale. Although the rings are rather wide, they are only 1-1000 m… Continue reading Put a Ring on It Continue reading →

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Io’s crazy volcanoes!

Posted on April 4, 2015 by karenagrebenc

photo from space.com So, we all know that Io is notoriously the volcanic moon of Jupiter, but apparently a couple of years ago it randomly got…MORE volcanic? According to this article, in August of 2013 three large eruptions occurred on Io.  To put it in perspective, this is the number of large eruptions that we […] Continue reading →

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