Monthly Archives: April 2024

Discovering Extrasolar Planets

Posted on April 7, 2024 by sabrinaalperin

Have you ever wondered if us humans are alone in the vast expanse of the universe? Do worlds similar to those in our solar system exist? Scientists are currently looking for answers to these questions by studying extrasolar planets, or planets that orbit around other stars. Three main methods allow scientists to analyze these questions […] Continue reading →

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Exoplanet exploration: 700 light-years away

Posted on April 6, 2024 by Adriana Santos

It might seem strange that we are currently exploring planets that are so far away from us, especially since we cannot travel to them. But, these planets, called exoplanets or extrasolar planets can teach us a lot about star-system formation. We can then take this information and apply it to our own solar system! One […] Continue reading →

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Blog 5: WHAT MAKES A METAL?

Posted on April 6, 2024 by matthewastro

Jupiter’s magnetosphere is generated thanks to a “metallic” layer of hydrogen around its core that is electrically conductive. Saturn also has “metallic,” electrically conductive hydrogen around its core, which enables it to have a magnetosphere as well. But the quotation marks? The answer is that metallic hydrogen isn’t a metal, in the traditional sense. First, […] Continue reading →

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Pluto – Common Misconceptions

Posted on April 6, 2024 by James Bamshad

Image Source Pluto has long been a very mysterious planets to both scientists and the general population. Because of this, many misconceptions have risen throughout the years. In this blog post, I will cover a few of the most popular myths, both scientific and fun. Continue reading →

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Differences Between the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt

Posted on April 5, 2024 by katie shapiro

There are as many comets in the sky as fishes in the ocean. -Johannes Kepler Going into this class I knew that comets came from the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, however, I never put much thought into why comets are in these two areas. For some context, comets are considered “dirty snowballs” because […] Continue reading →

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Some things never change…

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Abbie!!

Asteroids are rocky leftover pieces from the planetary formation era that never ended up becoming planets. They orbit our Sun out in the asteroid belt, but they are too small and weirdly shaped (thanks to impacts!) to be classified as planets. To give a sense of the size range of asteroids, the largest asteroid, Ceres, […] Continue reading →

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Titan’s Tremendous Atmosphere and its Striking Similarity to Earth

Posted on April 5, 2024 by katie shapiro

One of the most fascinating things that I have learned from this unit was the diversity that are the jovian moons. Originally, I believed moons to be rocky, non geologically active objects that orbited planets. Although this is the case for some moons, especially the smaller ones, some moons hold very unique characteristics, such as […] Continue reading →

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Blog 6: Io!

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Nicholas Fleisher

In this blog post, I’d like to talk about the BEST Galilean moon: Io. As I’m sure we all know, Io is known as the volcanic world of Jupiter’s moons. It holds large numbers of volcanoes, and frequent eruptions that repave the surface. In fact, its surface is relatively young with no impact craters. As […] Continue reading →

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Blog 5: Jovian Magnetospheres

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Nicholas Fleisher

For this blog post, I’m going to be talking about the relative magnetospheres of the Jovian planets. As we have learned with terrestrials, magnetic fields are generated by motions of charged particles deep in their planet’s interiors. These magnetic fields create magnetospheres, which are like huge bubble that surround the whole planet and shield it […] Continue reading →

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Put a ring on it!! 🪐

Posted on April 4, 2024 by Abbie!!

When I think of rings, the first planet that comes to mind is Saturn. Saturn has the most impressive rings out of all the Jovian planets in our solar system. (In fact, Saturn’s rings are so prominent that I sometimes forget that other Jovian planets also have rings!!) First, let’s talk about the properties of […] Continue reading →

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