Author Archives: Europa

The History and Future of the Universe: A Time Scale

Posted on April 30, 2023 by Europa

If you’d like to feel the crushing weight of existential dread as we approach the end of this course, and for me, the end of my time at Vanderbilt, I have just the video for you! It’s a YouTube video called “Age of Universe: Time in Perspective,” and it uses a time-to-volume comparison in order […] Continue reading →

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Where Are All the Aliens? Potential Solutions to the Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 29, 2023 by Europa

In class, Dr. G mentioned a Wait But Why article about the Fermi Paradox. I absolutely love this article and the entire concept of the Fermi Paradox–I even wrote about it in my Common App essay four years ago! The Fermi Paradox, first informally presented by physicist Enrico Fermi, describes the apparent contradiction between our […] Continue reading →

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Strange Stars (Literally)

Posted on April 8, 2023 by Europa

Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of massive stars of 10-25 solar masses. They are formed when these supergiant stars collapse under their own gravity and undergo a supernova explosion, which compresses the star’s core to the extremely high density of atomic nuclei. In fact, they are called neutron stars because the extreme forces within […] Continue reading →

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Ocean Worlds of Supercritical Fluid

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Europa

In class, we learned about various categories of exoplanets, including Super-Earths, terrestrials, ice giants, gas giants, and hot Jupiters. One other category that was mentioned was “water worlds,” an ill-defined and not entirely proven category of planets. This category would describe planets that are on the border between terrestrials and ice giants, or terrestrial worlds […] Continue reading →

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Time Dilation and the Theory of Relativity

Posted on March 7, 2023 by Europa

With our totally unrestricted guidelines on Blog 4, I would like to make a bit of a deviation from the content of our course and discuss time dilation and the theory of relativity! When I first learned about time dilation, which refers to the difference in elapsed time as measured by different clocks due to […] Continue reading →

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Voyager 1 and the Golden Records

Posted on March 7, 2023 by Europa

Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made object from Earth (Space.com). Voyager 1 is a space probe, launched in 1977 with the mission to explore the outer planets of the Solar System. Voyager 2, its twin probe, was actually launched first, with a slower, more meandering trajectory past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Voyager 1 soon […] Continue reading →

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Ancient Egypt Switches from the 360 to 365-Day Year

Posted on February 6, 2023 by Europa

The other day, my friend told me about an Ancient Egyptian myth regarding the switch from the 360 to the 365-day calendar in Egypt. At the time, I just thought it was a cool story, but later realized that it was a perfect example of archaeoastronomy. Before 4200 BCE, the Ancient Egyptian calendar year was […] Continue reading →

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To Be Circular, or Elliptical: That Was Kepler’s Question

Posted on February 1, 2023 by Europa

Johannes Kepler was an astronomer and mathematician best known for his development of the three laws of planetary motion. The first reflected a major upheaval in astronomical thought at the time: that planetary orbits are elliptical, with the Sun located at one of each orbit’s two foci, rather than perfectly circular. The second is that […] Continue reading →

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Identifying Jupiter and Mars

Posted on January 21, 2023 by Europa

Last night, I was looking up at the night sky while walking to dinner. I noticed a few constellations, as well as two brighter points of light that I was pretty sure were Mars and Jupiter. Normally, I can identify them, but for some reason Mars didn’t look as red to me as it normally […] Continue reading →

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Introduction

Posted on January 13, 2023 by Europa

Hello ASTR 2110 class! My name is Kathryn, and I’m a senior majoring in Biomedical Engineering. I wasn’t quite able to fit an Astronomy minor into my schedule, but I’ve always loved learning about space (fun fact: I wrote my college admission essay about the Fermi Paradox), so I’ve tried to pick up astronomy courses […] Continue reading →

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