Monthly Archives: March 2022

What was Theia?

Theia was about the size of Mars. It orbited with Earth.  It crashed into the Earth and the debris helped create the moon. The core of Theia combined with the core of Earth. Scientists disagree on this and some believe that it formed into multiple moons. It is hypothesized to have orbited in the L4 […] Continue reading

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Solar System Formation and Coincidences

Our solar system has many characteristics that can seem like odd coincidences. Why are all of the planets in the same orbital plane? Why are their orbits all nearly circular instead of being more eccentric? Why do they all orbit in the same direction around the Sun? The nebular theory of solar system formation, asContinue reading “Solar System Formation and Coincidences” Continue reading

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Blog #4: Coronal Mass Ejections

Coronal Mass Ejections are ejections of solar wind and plasma from our Sun’s corona. The blast from a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), carries about a billion tons of material away from the sun at speeds ranging from 250 km/s to almost 3000 km/s. (NOAA) If they are directed toward Earth when they are ejected from […] Continue reading

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Binary Star Collision

Binary stars were stars orbiting each other, and they might eventually collide due to the stellar mass loss or gravitational radiation which caused the decay of orbits. Stellar collisions could be amazing and rare, which happened once every 10000 years in our globular clusters. It was very likely, from scientists’ approximation, that a binary star […] Continue reading

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Composition of Planets within the Solar System

Different elements were occupied in different planets within the solar system. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars were terrestrial planets made of rocks, which were composed of diverse metal elements including magnesium and aluminum. Specifically, mercury obtained a thin exosphere of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium, and potassium. Venus consisted of an iron core and a carbon-dioxide […] Continue reading

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Blog Post 4 Chicxulub Impact

The Chicxulub Impact happened approximately 66 million years ago, defining the end of the Cretaceous Period and the beginning of the Paleocene, as well as the end of the Mesozoic Era and the beginning of the Cenozoic Era. This impact not only managed to eradicate the dinosaurs as the dominant lifeform on the planet but […] Continue reading

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Proxima: Our Cosmic Neighbor

The closest star to our solar system is one named Proxima Centauri. Proxima Centauri is a relatively small star, as it is a red dwarf star with about 12.5% the mass of the Sun and only about 0.17% as bright as the Sun. Proxima Centauri resides about 4.25 light years away from Earth, and is […] Continue reading

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The Cassini Spacecraft

The story of the Cassini spacecraft is one of scientific discovery and self sacrifice. Cassini was launched in 1997 and spent 20 years in space, focusing on the planet Saturn, its moons, and its rings, before the spacecraft’s intentional demise in 2017. Through Cassini, we were able to land a probe on Titan, Saturn’s largest […] Continue reading

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Theory of the Creation of the Moon

Over the decades, there have been many hypotheses made about how our Moon was formed. There are many possibilities that we can rule out simply due to the facts that we know about the Universe. Firstly, we know that the…

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How Astronomy may harm Life on Earth

A new study by Nature Astronomy has tapped an estimate for the greenhouse gas emissions of the astronomy industry. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the global astronomy industry is much smaller than many other industries, its emissions are strikingly large. The number estimated by this study is a staggering 20 million tonnes of CO2 annually. […] Continue reading

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