Daily Archives: April 10, 2016

Exoplanet HD 189733b

Posted on April 10, 2016 by chasejaeger

Around 63 light years away form Earth sits the exoplanet HD 189733b. The planet has a mass of 1.13 Jupiter masses and orbits its star closer than Mercury orbits the Sun. Seen from afar, this planet is blue in color and has bands of white haze in its atmosphere that resemble clouds. Though HD 189733b […] Continue reading →

Posted in Exoplanets | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Exoplanet HD 189733b

Something like acid rain, but a lot worse

Posted on April 10, 2016 by philhawkins221

captain’s blog, Stardate 69741.0 So we’re spending a lot of time talking about moons lately. If I weren’t so well-educated in the astronomy of our Solar System I would maybe think: “you’re just learning about moons, isn’t that kind of boring?” But I AM so well-educated in the astronomy of our Solar System and know […] Continue reading →

Posted in Aliens, Class, Moons | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Something like acid rain, but a lot worse

Pluto’s Kind Heart

Posted on April 10, 2016 by nedastro2110

  Pluto has been a topic of fascination for astronomers for a long time now. With the recent flyby of the New Horizons Spacecraft, a new image of Pluto has captivated the world. Pluto has a heart. Well not actually a heart but a region that looks like a heart! I guess Pluto is really […] Continue reading →

Posted in Class, Dwarf Planets, General, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Pluto’s Kind Heart

Uranus

Posted on April 10, 2016 by imanig625

Uranus the most mysterious of the gas giants, in its form, orbit, and rotation. It is a widely known fact that Uranus rotates on its side, but its strange tilt also means that its magnetic field is skewed, so that its magnetic north and south are vastly different than its polar. In addition, the storms… Continue reading →

Posted in Class, Space Travel | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Uranus

Fun Facts about Titan

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Alex Pratte

Out of all the moons in our solar system, my favorite one would have to be Titan. Titan is the second largest moon in our solar system, second only to that fat piece of lard Ganymede. However, Titan, has something that Ganymede doesn’t and that is an “earth like cycle of liquids flowing across its […] Continue reading →

Posted in Moons, Small SS Objects | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Fun Facts about Titan

Sleipnir Fossa, Pluto’s “Giant Spider” Fracture

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Chloe

Pluto may have had its planet status revoked, but astronomers are still studying its surface through images captured by the NASA New Horizon’s spacecraft. In the last week, images and information about one of Pluto’s most recently discovered features was released.   Sleipnir Fossa and related fractures in an image captured by New Horizons on 14 July […] Continue reading →

Posted in Class, Dwarf Planets | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Sleipnir Fossa, Pluto’s “Giant Spider” Fracture

Comets and stuff

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Alex Pratte

For blog 7 I’ve decided to write about comets. Comets, according to space.com is “an icy body that releases gas or dust”(space.com) Astronomers believe that comets are leftovers of the gas, dust, ice, and rocks that originally formed our solar system. It is believed that comets carried some of the water and organic molecules that […] Continue reading →

Posted in Small SS Objects | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Comets and stuff

Stop! In the Name of…

Posted on April 10, 2016 by impossibleensign

Gravity? What causes Hot Jupiters to not be eaten by their parent stars? Continue reading →

Posted in Jovians, Science | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Stop! In the Name of…

Leonids

Posted on April 10, 2016 by siyuan2016

image source The Leonids is a meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle. It gets its name from the location of its apparent radiant in the constellation Leo and has been famous for its most spectacular meteor storms since its identification in 1833. Since comet Tempel-Tuttle is a periodic comet with an orbital period of […] Continue reading →

Posted in Class | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Leonids

Extrasolar planets

Posted on April 10, 2016 by siyuan2016

image source In the class, we learn about the astrometric technique, Doppler technique and direct imaging used to detect extrasolar planets. And in this blog, I’d like to introduce some other planet-hunting strategies that have proved to be applicable. The first method is called gravitational microlensing. A gravitational microlensing occurs only when two stars are […] Continue reading →

Posted in Class | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Extrasolar planets