Daily Archives: February 9, 2020

Stromatolites

Stromatolites are layered mounds or sheet-like layers of sedimentary rock that were originally forced by growing on a layer of cyanobacteria, a single-cell microbe. Fossilized stromatolites provide a record of ancient life and tidal patterns on Earth. Millions of years ago, seas all over the world would resemble the picture above, which was taken fromContinue reading “Stromatolites” Continue reading

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Invisible Stars Bending Space-Time with Gravity

Researchers at the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw have recently discovered two previously invisible stars deep within the Milky Way. These binary stars (two stars that effectively orbit each other) were found thanks to a star called Gaia16aye that is considerably farther away. A few years ago, astronomers noticed that Gaia16aye would occasionallyContinue reading “Invisible Stars Bending Space-Time with Gravity” Continue reading

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The Moon’s Tug

Three weeks ago, for my Earth System Dynamics course, I listened to a Radiolab podcast about the distance between the Earth and the Moon. In “The Times They Are a Changin’” paleontologists talk about how coral shells taught us that the Earth used to have shorter days. Their shells have tiny bands, an alternating patternContinue reading “The Moon’s Tug” Continue reading

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How Gravity Affects Light

Gravity exerts a force on photons, even though it has no mass. This can distort the things we see if the light that reaches us is being distorted by gravity, as seen in the picture at the top of this post. The confusing aspect of this is that gravity affects this light even though theContinue reading “How Gravity Affects Light” Continue reading

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Blog 2- Ch 3,4,5,6: Neap and Spring Tides

Throughout this unit, we learned about tides, their causes and what influences them. In preparing for this blogpost, I came across two different kinds of tides (besides high and low tide) called “spring” and “neap” tides. These tides correlate with the moon phases, in that spring tides occur during the new or full moon, andContinue reading “Blog 2- Ch 3,4,5,6: Neap and Spring Tides” Continue reading

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Interesting tides

Tides are caused by differences in magnitude between th继续阅读“Interesting tides” Continue reading

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Nashville’s “Snow Moon”

On the evening of Saturday February 9th, the Nashville area saw an abnormally large moon known as a super-moon. This was also a special moon because it was also known as the “snow moon.” The “snow moon” is a full or new moon of astronomical and cultural significance around the globe. The super-moon phenomenon occursContinue reading “Nashville’s “Snow Moon”” Continue reading

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The Basics of Our World

The Standard Model consists of 17 elementary particles that fit into a mathematical and theoretical framework that explains matter and forces. Since last century, the model has been able to not only explain, but also to predict existences of undiscovered particles. The particles are categorized into two groups: fermions and bosons. Fermions make up matter.Continue reading “The Basics of Our World” Continue reading

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