Monthly Archives: April 2016

Are We Overdue for a Mass Extinction?

People have argued about if and when the human race will die out on earth.  We have essentially taken ourselves out of the food chain, meaning that we won’t be hunted to extinction.  We have also made great strides in medicine making it unlikely that we will die out from disease.  It may seem improbable […] Continue reading

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SpaceX

Elon Musk is well known for his innovative publicly-traded companies Tesla and SolarCity. However, it may be SpaceX, the private company that he founded, that has the most promise to change the world. SpaceX made history on Friday (April 8) when it landed … Continue reading Continue reading

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spider!

i was looking to write something about the surface geography of pluto and came across this article about a cool geographic feature on the surface of pluto! since the flyby, we’ve had a lot of new information to sift through about the distant icy planet, and now we’ve found a new set of tendrils on … Continue reading spider! Continue reading

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North Korean Space Program’s Latest Breakthrough in Propulsion Technology!

Look out NASA, there’s a new kid on the block, and he’s got a shiny new toy. In a highly unprecedented act of transparency and openess, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea allowed members of the Associated Press inside access to their closely guarded Kim Il Sung proving grounds for the debut of their latest […] Continue reading

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love is forever!

neutron stars are extremely dense stars – perhaps the densest stars in the known universe! – so dense in fact, that a marble-sized serving of neutron star would weigh about the same as 5 trillion tons of earth rock! they can form as a result of the collapse of a giant star in a supernova event. because they … Continue reading love is forever! Continue reading

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Supermassive Black Holes

Astronomers have recently discovered a supermassive black hole in a region of space that is sparsely populated.  The black hole is 17 billion times bigger than the Sun (by mass), making it one of the larger black holes ever discovered.  The strange part is that scientists had only ever found supermassive black holes at the […] Continue reading

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Kepler Concerns

One of NASA’s most prized space probes may be in need of some roadside assistance after a scheduled Thursday communication session revealed the craft has entered emergency mode. The Kepler spacecraft was launched in 2009 and is equipped with telescopes and instruments critical to the discovery and analysis of extrasolar planets. Little is known so […] Continue reading

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Jupiter’s Galilean Moons

Discovered by Galileo in 1610, Jupiter’s four largest moons are some of the most interesting worlds in our Solar System. “Volcanic Io”: Jupiter’s inner-most moon, Io, is the fourth largest moon in the solar system. It is also the most volcanically-active object in the Solar System, with over 400 active volcanoes. Large mountains cover its […] Continue reading

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Enceladus

One of Saturn’s many moons, Enceladus, has been peppered with eruptions. Underneath the icy surface, there is a probability of a global ocean, which makes it even more suspicious that it has developed these fissures on its surface, mainly on the south pole. The erupted particles take about forty minutes or so to reach the… Continue reading

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Blog 8 (Saturn’s Rings)

Saturn’s rings are one of the most fascinating subjects in astronomy for many people because they are one of the most visible examples of beauty in our Solar System. Interestingly enough, the other Jovian planets also have rings, but they are not nearly as conspicuous as the rings on Saturn are. What fascinated me when […] Continue reading

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