Daily Archives: April 10, 2016

Why We Think Dark Matter Exists

Posted on April 10, 2016 by solarsystemjoe

Solely based on our experiences, we might be inclined to say that most of the universe is composed of “normal matter,” electrons, quarks and other subatomic particles.   However,  we have reason to believe that there are other kinds of matter in the universe, dark matter and dark energy.  In fact, according to this pie […] Continue reading →

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Solar Sails

Posted on April 10, 2016 by chasejaeger

Currently, we do not have the technology to travel to even the closest stars. The fastest spacecraft humans have ever built is the Voyager 1, which is currently traveling at roughly 17 km/s. However, even at these speeds it would take the Voyager I nearly 70,000 years to get to the nearest star system, Alpha […] Continue reading →

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Blog #7 (Pluto)

Posted on April 10, 2016 by astronomer0110

It’s a well-publicized fact by now that Pluto has been downgraded from planet to dwarf planet. Many people felt betrayed that one of the 9 planets they learned from childhood was no longer considered a planet. In reality, it was a logical decision because Pluto’s orbit is more elliptical, icier, and smaller than the rest […] Continue reading →

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Voyager Golden Record – Reading the Instructions

Posted on April 10, 2016 by podolakvandysolarsystem

On my last unrestricted blog post, I began a series of posts on my favorite topic in astronomy: The Voyager Golden Record. If you missed that blog post you can check it out here. Basically, the golden record is a message in a bottle being cast into the cosmic ocean. It will go very far […] Continue reading →

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The Darkest Planet in the Universe

Posted on April 10, 2016 by nickwtheastronomer

The planet sullenly staring back at you is TrES-2b and no it is not just going through a phase, this exoplanet is indeed the universe’s ultimate goth. TrES-2b is a gas giant which was first detected in 2006 by the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES) employing the transit method of exoplanet discovery. In the transit method […] Continue reading →

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Europa, a Galilean Moon of Jupiter

Posted on April 10, 2016 by solarsystemjoe

As the title suggests, Europa was discovered by Galileo in 1610.  Although Galileo’s instruments for investigating the cosmos weren’t as sophisticated as ours are today, the relatively large size of Europa, a size comparable to the moon’s size, made it possible for it to be discovered in 1610.  And since then, Europa has been investigated […] Continue reading →

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Behemoth black hole found in an unlikely place

Posted on April 10, 2016 by segalastronomyblog

Watch out, Earth! Scientists have discovered a massive black hole in our universe, one that weighs the equivalent of 17 billions suns! While the size of this black hole is very significant, something that makes it even more unique is it’s location in our universe. According to astronomers, black holes this size are almost always […] Continue reading →

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A Giant spider on Pluto?

Posted on April 10, 2016 by segalastronomyblog

Launched in 2006, the New Horizons Space Probe set out with the mission to get the best view of Pluto that we humans have ever seen. And it just so happens that we succeeded! We are now seeing the absolute best images that we have ever seen of the famed dwarf planet. Recently, Pluto has […] Continue reading →

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Doppler vs. Astrometric: Find the Planet

Posted on April 10, 2016 by samihahplanet

Currently, it’s quite difficult to discover new planets simply by direct observation. This is because the high interference of light caused by the planets’ respective stars makes it almost impossible to detect the light reflected off of planets. However, there are two indirect planet detection methods: Doppler and astrometric. The astrometric method relies on measuring […] Continue reading →

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The Lonely Giant – NGC 1600

Posted on April 10, 2016 by briannagalgano

Astronomers have discovered an enormously massive galaxy, NGC 1600, 209 light years away. NGC 1600 is an elliptical galaxy that is 17,000,000,000 billion solar masses. There are many massive black holes in the Universe (Source). In fact, there is a black hole at the center of every galaxy. It is thought that perhaps black holes […] Continue reading →

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