Monthly Archives: January 2016

Solstices & Spirituality

Posted on January 26, 2016 by lindseynestor

  As we’ve learned through our assignments and reading, the spring and fall equinoxes are the times when the Sun appears to cross the equator, causing daytime to be the same length at almost all latitudes. These two days, in addition to the winter and summer solstices, held high significance in ancient spirituality. The adoration […] Continue reading →

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Observing Deep Space

Posted on January 26, 2016 by mattsastronomyblog

Trying to observe deep space proves to be difficult with the naked eye.  Over time telescopes have allowed humans to see farther and farther into space.  The Hubble space telescope was launched in 1990 and orbits around the Earth.  Because the telescope is in space, there is minimal light pollution.  The telescope lens is almost […] Continue reading →

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Blog #1 Vast Size and Scale

Posted on January 26, 2016 by seanmcsolsys

From Chapter 1 of our course textbook, we dived deep into the vastness that is space. We explored what our cosmic address is, how long it takes to travel among the stars in terms of light-years, and measured our distance from the center of the Milky Way. Despite this almost unimaginable expanse, the chapter doesn’t really […] Continue reading →

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Cosmic Calendar

Posted on January 26, 2016 by samanthas25

The history of our Universe is extremely vast, and therefore might at times be a bit difficult to comprehend. In order to better take a look at the expansive history of the Universe, we can condense the large time period onto a single calendar year. This allows us to really grasp the amount of time […] Continue reading →

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Voyager

Posted on January 26, 2016 by mattsastronomyblog

The voyager was sent out to explore deep space.  Since it was launched in 1977 it has now traveled 130 AU and was sent to explore the solar system.  It used planetary assists to achieve the solar system escape velocity required to enter interstellar space. In almost 40 years of travel, the Voyager 1 has […] Continue reading →

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The Solar Eclipse

Posted on January 26, 2016 by nedastro2110

  What you see above is an almost total solar eclipse. One of the easiest astrological phenomenons to observe due to its size in the sky is a solar or lunar eclipse. Now what is an eclipse exactly? Well it when either the moon aligns perfectly between the sun and earth in the case of […] Continue reading →

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Making the Jump to Light Speed

Posted on January 26, 2016 by lindseynestor

Chapter 1 of Astronomy: The Solar System served as a HUGE (seriously though) reminder as to how small and insignificant we are, and how very very very infinitesimally small the corner of the universe we’ve explored actually is. I’m a big Star Wars fan, and looking at that world from the perspective of astronomy class, […] Continue reading →

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Astro Apps

Posted on January 26, 2016 by jgarrett9

Observing the night sky can often be tricky when you are trying to locate stars or planets that all look the same to the naked eye. News stories always pop up about fun things to see in the night sky that will be easily visible for us such as two planets overlapping in their perceived… Continue reading →

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Speed of Light Slowing Down???

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Alex Pratte

So we’ve all heard of Einstein’s theory of relativity which states that the speed of light is constant and all that good stuff. Well, apparently a couple of Australian scientists have found evidence that points to the possibility that the speed of light is not actually constant and has been slowing down since the Big […] Continue reading →

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Size and Scale

Posted on January 26, 2016 by jgarrett9

The Universe is absolutely massive, and it never fails to impress us when there is a new way of seeing how truly large it is. Every time there is a new video or a picture of a tiny dot next to an enormous ball that helps us visualize how enormous the scale of the Universe… Continue reading →

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