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Daily Archives: January 22, 2023
The “Ten”ets of the Universe
Our brains struggle to comprehend the magnitude of our universe. We make comparisons based on that which we can see, yet it is totally inadequate to what reality holds. For example, the average person is just under 2 meters tall. But their size of the Earth when compared to that is substantial. The mean diameter […] Continue reading
The Ultimate Race
We take it for granted that the speed of light is the universal speed limit; nothing can go faster than light. The knowledge of light-years is crucial to understanding the images that we see in the night sky. These images are not of the celestial bodies as they currently exist, but as they once were, […] Continue reading
The myth of travelling at Light Speed
3*10^8 m/s. Wow. It’s practically impossible to conceptualize something moving 300 thousand Kilometers every single second, but believe it or not photons are doing this as we speak. To put this blistering pace into perspective, the distance from the North Pole to the South Pole is about 20,000 kilometers. Not even close to the length […] Continue reading
The Incredible Size of Our Universe
The image above is an artist’s illustration of everything in the observable universe. I find this image very interesting as it shows the scale increasing starting with our solar system and going out to galaxies, superclusters, our local group and further. This makes me realize how small we truly are in comparison to the universe […] Continue reading
Posted in Class, Universe
Tagged astro2110, blog1, observable
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We Already Have a Time Machine
People say time traveling doesnt exist. They are skeptical we are able to break every law of physics we grew up learning. But, if we really think about it, we have a time machine right in front of us: a telescope. What is a light year? Don’t be confused with the word ‘year’ being in […] Continue reading
Posted in Class, Observables
Tagged astro2110, blog1, light-years, telescope
Comments Off on We Already Have a Time Machine
Up Above The World So High
A blog about observing the night sky over and over. Wanna read more on this long-exposure picture? Click here! Through reading the textbook this past week, I was enlightened about what it would be like to observe the night sky hour after hour, night after night, and year after year. Before taking this course (and one […] Continue reading
Eclipses & Wildlife
During our discussion of solar eclipses in last Thursday’s lecture, we focused mostly on the astronomical concepts behind how and why they occur. As well, there was a brief discussion on what one would experience inside the path of totality for those short 7 or so minutes during a total solar eclipse. Following this lecture, […] Continue reading
Blog 1 – The “Great American Eclipse” Experience
Back in 2017, my school allotted class time for observing the total solar eclipse that (conveniently) passed through Nashville. Many of my classmates (including me) didn’t fully realize how significant this was until our observation. The brief two and a half minutes of totality was awe inspiring. What struck me most was the terrestrial reaction […] Continue reading
The Scale of the Universe and Us
Reading the graphic in the textbook called “Our Cosmic Address”, I got a sense for the first time of how small of a planet we live on. Earth is a typical planet rotating by a typical star we call the Sun which is only one of billions of stars in the Milky Way which is […] Continue reading
Minutes and seconds of arc
Similar to a light-year, an arcminute can be mistaken for a unit of time. An arcminute is 1/60th of a degree and an arcsecond is 1/60th of an arcminute. For example, “12 degrees, 50 arcminutes, and 29 arcseconds” is written as 12° 50′ 29”. As units of angular measurement, arcminutes and arcseconds allow for more […] Continue reading