Monthly Archives: February 2016

Tides+Moon…Relationship?

Posted on February 16, 2016 by segalastronomyblog

If you spend an entire day at the beach, it is pretty obvious to notice that the tide changes throughout the day. Sometimes it comes up all the way to your feet while you lay in your beach chair, while other times the tide can be so low it seems like the water is a […] Continue reading →

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Shout-out to all the Astronomy Ladies

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Alex Pratte

In a lot of professions today it seems like the ladies are under appreciated, so for my fourth blog I thought it would be nice to give some credit to a couple of smart lady astronomers that paved the way for women in the sciences. As I learned in a really cool BBC article that […] Continue reading →

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Using the Stars to Navigate

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Alex Pratte

c For my third blog, I came across a mental floss article giving some helpful tips on how to navigate at night by looking at the stars. As we all know people have been using the stars to navigate from place to place for really long time, so it seems like something pretty handy to […] Continue reading →

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Voyager 2 & Planetary Assists

Posted on February 16, 2016 by mattsastronomyblog

When an object is trying to leave a planet, it must reach escape velocity.  The escape velocity is the speed at which the kinetic energy of the moving body is equal to its gravitational potential energy.  The escape velocity from earth is about 25,000 mph.  So when the Voyager 2 left earth, it had to reach […] Continue reading →

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Where is Everybody?

Posted on February 15, 2016 by astr2110geoffren

The Fermi Paradox questions how is it possible that if there are so many planets orbiting so many stars existing in so many solar systems making up so many galaxies composing so many superclusters creating our observable universe, how is it possible that we haven’t seen any other signs of intelligent life? This has many […] Continue reading →

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The Serial Killer Known as Light

Posted on February 15, 2016 by astr2110geoffren

Pretty Much a Giant Lightsaber Gamma Radiation Bursts (GRB) make up the brightest flashes of light from outer space and it isn’t even a contest. If we had the ability to see them we would probably all instantaneously go blind. These flashes of light can last anywhere from a few milliseconds to a few minutes […] Continue reading →

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Stonehenge: Change the How!

Posted on February 15, 2016 by astrologankeller

We all know Stonehenge as a Wonder of the World, in which there are multiple sets of 3 massive rocks stacked together. The major question revolving around Stonehenge (to the lay person) is how they got the rocks up there, since the technology of the time would have made this incredibly difficult. While this is […] Continue reading →

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Blog #4 Spacecraft and “Gold Foil”

Posted on February 15, 2016 by seanmcsolsys

If you’ve ever seen pictures of satellites being prepped in clean rooms, you’ve probably seen the immense amounts of gold foil covering the crafts. You might think the foil’s purpose is to keep the probe clean until launch, or that gold’s conductive and malleable properties aid the function of the vehicle. For space travel, it’s neither. […] Continue reading →

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Geostationary Orbit – Calculations and GIF

Posted on February 15, 2016 by podolakvandysolarsystem

Geostationary Orbit (GSO) is a specific type of orbit around the earth with a period of exactly one day, intentionally matching the rate of earth’s rotation. GSO is at zero inclination, meaning it is directly above the equator. This also means that a geostationary satellite will always be in the same point in the sky […] Continue reading →

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GRAVITATIONAL WAVES!!!!

Posted on February 15, 2016 by harperastronomyblog

According to the this video by the New York Times, Scientists working at LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) have made a monumental discovery that reinforces Albert Einstein’s theory of special relatively put forth almost a hundred years ago. Einstein predicted gravitational waves when he announced his theory, but until LIGO’s announcement on Thursday, no […] Continue reading →

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