Author Archives: captivatingcomet

Our Milky Way Galaxy

Posted on May 4, 2021 by captivatingcomet

The Milky Way is a large barred spiral galaxy with four arms: the Sagittarius arm, Perseus arm, Outer arm, and Scutum-Centaurus arm. Majority of the stars in the Milky Way are single or binary stars; however, there are three distinct types of star clusters, collections of tens to thousands of stars, within the galaxy. TheseContinue reading “Our Milky Way Galaxy” Continue reading →

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All About Tardigrades!

Posted on May 3, 2021 by captivatingcomet

Tardigrades are a type of invertebrate and extremophile since they are able to thrive in extreme environments. Other names for tardigrades are water bears or moss piglets. They are typically 1 mm long or smaller. Tardigrades can live in numerous different environments such as damp moss, flowering plants, sand, fresh water, and the sea. InContinue reading “All About Tardigrades!” Continue reading →

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Triton: Neptune’s Interesting Moon

Posted on April 17, 2021 by captivatingcomet

Triton is Neptune’s largest moon with a diameter of 1,680 miles (2,700 kilometers). It was discovered in 1846 by astronomer William Lassell a little over two weeks after Neptune’s discovery. Triton is named after one of Poseidon’s sons; Poseidon is the Greek god equivalent of the Roman god Neptune. Triton is unique in that itContinue reading “Triton: Neptune’s Interesting Moon” Continue reading →

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Comets: A Bunch of “Dirty Snowballs”

Posted on April 17, 2021 by captivatingcomet

It is only right to dedicate a blog post to the very things that inspired my username: comets! Comets are small objects that orbit the Sun and tend to have more eccentric orbits than other bodies in the solar system. A comet consists of a nucleus, coma, ion tail, and dust tail. The nucleus is solidContinue reading “Comets: A Bunch of “Dirty Snowballs”” Continue reading →

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Amazing Auroras

Posted on March 21, 2021 by captivatingcomet

Auroras happen when charged particles within solar winds go through Earth’s magnetic field. Solar winds are fast moving, plasma particles discharged by sunspot regions, areas where the Sun’s magnetic fields become tangled and burst. These particles bump into different atomic elements, such as nitrogen and oxygen, to create ions in excited states that release lightContinue reading “Amazing Auroras” Continue reading →

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The Ranking System of Solar Flares

Posted on March 20, 2021 by captivatingcomet

Solar flares are solar storms and explosions that release ultraviolet light, x-rays, energy, and very fast, charged particles. They are categorized into classes based on their strength. The classes ranked from smallest to biggest solar flares are: A, B, C, M, and X. Each class increases 10-fold in energy and has a subscale that goesContinue reading “The Ranking System of Solar Flares” Continue reading →

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The Disappearing Road

Posted on February 26, 2021 by captivatingcomet

Tides are produced by the difference in the gravitational force of the Moon on the near and far side of Earth; this force causes tidal bulges on the side of Earth facing the Moon and the side of Earth opposite the Moon. During Earth’s rotation, high tides happen when a place goes through the tidalContinue reading “The Disappearing Road” Continue reading →

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Historical Astronomers in Context

Posted on February 17, 2021 by captivatingcomet

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was important to astronomy since he came up with three laws to describe planetary motion (Kepler’s laws of planetary motion). The first law states that planets have elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus of the ellipse while the other focus is just empty space. This is significant because previous astronomersContinue reading “Historical Astronomers in Context” Continue reading →

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Ancient Interpretation of Solar Eclipses

Posted on February 5, 2021 by captivatingcomet

In ancient Iraq, it was believed that a solar eclipse meant something awful was going to happen to the king or ruler. Ancient Mesopotamian astronomers could accurately determine when an eclipse would occur. When a solar eclipse was projected to happen, the court and priests would prepare for this event by planting a substitute kingContinue reading “Ancient Interpretation of Solar Eclipses” Continue reading →

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About Me!

Posted on February 1, 2021 by captivatingcomet

Hello! I’m Victoria, a senior majoring in chemical engineering. I love traveling and one of my favorite places I’ve been to is Pompeii. You can learn more about Pompeii here. Continue reading →

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