Monthly Archives: March 2016

A New Set of Eyes in Space

Or perhaps a new set of mirrors would be more accurate. Today, a scientist and an engineer from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) visited Vanderbilt and gave a talk about what they hope to discover using the telescope and the sheer feats of engineering that made the telescope a reality. The JWST in an … Continue reading A New Set of Eyes in Space Continue reading

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7 Things You Should Know About the Kuiper Belt

1. The Kuiper Belt is an elliptical band of objects beyond Neptune’s orbit extending from 30 to 55 AU. It is similar to the asteroid belt except the objects in the Kuiper Belt are made more from ice than rock. Pluto is a part of the Kuiper Belt and comets can be found there as … Continue reading 7 Things You Should Know About the Kuiper Belt Continue reading

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Big Bang, Small Seconds

Most of us have an awareness of the basic concept of the Big Bang Theory from a very young age. I am not referring to the CBS show, but I suppose children learn about that fairly young nowadays as well. Anyway, although I’ve always had a basic understanding of what the Big Bang Theory entails, […] Continue reading

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Jupiter’s Less Popular Moons

Io, Europa, Ganymede and Castillo get a lot of love, but the 63 other members of Jupiter’s posse are often overlooked. This NASA webpage provides in-depth information about each of Jupiter’s 67 moons. 50 of them are official moons and have names to reflect that status. However, the other 17 are mere “Provisional Moons,” which […] Continue reading

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The Hunt for Extrasolar Planets

The Hunt for Extrasolar Planets 2098 extrasolar planets have been discovered starting in 1988. Extrasolar planets are planets that exist on stars other than the sun. Because these are relatively small and dark object that orbit much larger bright objects so very far way they can be very difficult to find. Astronomers can discover them […] Continue reading

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Voyager 1- Interstellar Travel

In 2013, after almost four decades of space traveling, Voyager 1 became the first man-made object to leave our solar system. The most amazing detail of this great accomplishment? The Voyager has 175,000,000 million times less computing power than the Apple iPhone 5 and its “memory card” is measured in kilobytes.  For those who aren’t […] Continue reading

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Climate Change

Image Source Volcano activity is one of the most important factors that affect global climate change. Strong volcanic eruptions will release huge amounts of SO2 and sulfate aerosols that will strongly absorb solar radiation into the stratosphere, creating a global layer of sulfuric acid haze and cooling the Earth’s climate for more than 1 year. […] Continue reading

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Climate Change

Image Source Volcano activity is one of the most important factors that affect global climate change. Strong volcanic eruptions will release huge amounts of SO2 and sulfate aerosols that will strongly absorb solar radiation into the stratosphere, creating a global layer of sulfuric acid haze and cooling the Earth’s climate for more than 1 year. […] Continue reading

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Nuclear Fusion

Image Source Since the discovery of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, people have thought to use nuclear reactions that release energy to generate heat for industrial production. Up to 2015, nuclear power has provided more than 10% of world’s electricity. Since fusion involves the merging of atomic nuclei and it’s so hard to get it […] Continue reading

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Nuclear Fusion

Image Source Since the discovery of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, people have thought to use nuclear reactions that release energy to generate heat for industrial production. Up to 2015, nuclear power has provided more than 10% of world’s electricity. Since fusion involves the merging of atomic nuclei and it’s so hard to get it […] Continue reading

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