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Monthly Archives: March 2019
Gravity and Sun Size
Gravity as the Driving Force The Sun has a mass of 2 * 10^30 kg. Gravity exerts a compression force on the Sun proportional to this immense mass. So why doesn’t the sun collapse under the weight of its gravity? The pressure of the center of the Sun is about 340 billion times the air … Continue reading Gravity and Sun Size → Continue reading
History of Constellations
Long before history has been recorded, humans have studied the stars in the night sky. Although we have looked at stars for thousands of years, it wasn’t until 1930 that the 88 constellations were officially named by the International Astronomical Union. 48 of these constellations were named by Ptolemy in his book The Almagest in … Continue reading History of Constellations → Continue reading
Posted in Historical, Observables, Stars
Tagged astro2110, blog4, Constellations
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Gravity Waves
Venus is the unfortunate victim of a runaway greenhouse effect. Not only does this make the planet uninhabitable, it also causes a tremendous degree of difficulty in observing the planet’s surface. However, there are many interesting things to gain from Venus by just looking at the atmosphere, including a massive gravity wave. Gravity waves in … Continue reading Gravity Waves → Continue reading
Posted in Observables, Physics, Space Travel, Terrestrials
Tagged astro2110, Atmosphere, blog4, gravity, Solar System, venus
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Nuclear Fusion in the Sun
Nuclear fusion is the process in which the Sun and all other stars generate energy through the combination of light atoms into heavier ones. The nuclear fusion in most stars is carried out in proton-proton fusion. In the first step, two protons fused together to create a proton-neutron core and emitting a neutrino and positron. … Continue reading Nuclear Fusion in the Sun → Continue reading
An Artificial Sun
In November of 2018, Chinese scientists announced their work on an artificial sun. Their goal is to develop the same nuclear fusion process that occurs within the sun (the conversion of hydrogen into helium) on Earth to ultimately create a source of unlimited clean energy. One of the biggest challenges of this project is to … Continue reading An Artificial Sun → Continue reading
The Age of a Rock
In the grand scheme of things, one can forget about how everything little thing that exists in our Universe has an age. While we consistently talk about planets and stars having ages of billions of years, we sometimes forget to think about not only how the rocks and geographical formations on Earth are formed but … Continue reading The Age of a Rock → Continue reading
Finding Nuclear Fusion
Before the advent of Modern Science and its ability to explain natural phenomena relatively well, we had no idea how the Sun actually worked. Scientists had no idea that the Sun was just a giant ball of really hot gas that’s able to generate light using its own mass. However, over the course of time … Continue reading Finding Nuclear Fusion → Continue reading
Retrieving Voyager 1 – A Rescue Mission
In 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 to study the far reaches of our solar system. The program was a tremendous success: not only did the probe gather useful information about Jupiter and Saturn, it also captured the first detailed images of their moons (including a flyby of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon). Even now, after Voyager … Continue reading Retrieving Voyager 1 – A Rescue Mission → Continue reading
Posted in Historical, Instruments, Public Policy, Science, Space Travel
Tagged blog3, space, voyager
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Blog 3: Auroras in the Southern United States
On November 20, 2003 Auroras were seen in the southern United States. This is not a normal occurrence as is likely obvious to most of you. Auroras, or the Northern Lights, are caused by charged particles from the sun spiraling around the earth’s magnetic field and hitting the atmosphere. The magnetic field lines of the … Continue reading Blog 3: Auroras in the Southern United States → Continue reading
Posted in Sun
Tagged astro2110, Aurora, blog3, Magnetosphere, Solar System
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The Sun in our Solar System
The Sun is a hottest star in the universe. The gravity holds the solar system together. It shines so brightly that the temperature of the sun is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit while temperatures of the core reaches abundant 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. The sun also orbits about 25,000 light-years from the galactic core. It is […] Continue reading