Author Archives: gracelearnsspace

The Northern Lights

Posted on April 28, 2021 by gracelearnsspace

The northern lights are one of Earth’s beautiful sights that everyone wants to see. However, little people actually know how they occur. The northern lights, which are aurora, are caused by electrified gas from the Sun getting caught by Earth’s magnetic field which leads to the North and South poles. These particles from the sun […] Continue reading →

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The Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 27, 2021 by gracelearnsspace

The Fermi Paradox is the paradox that while there are probably other intelligent life forms in the Milky Way, none have have made any communication with Earth. Since Earth is a younger planet of the Milky Way, if intelligent civilizations existed they would likely be much older, meaning they would have the technology to communicate […] Continue reading →

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Asteroid Mining

Posted on April 11, 2021 by gracelearnsspace

Asteroids are failed planetesimals made up of rock and metals, some of which may be valuable such as platinum, silver, and gold. Around 8% of the asteroids in the asteroid belt are ones full of precious metals. Some platinum heavy asteroids may contain 175 times the amount of platinum mined yearly on Earth. For this […] Continue reading →

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Europa

Posted on April 10, 2021 by gracelearnsspace

Europa is one of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, however, it is much more than that. Scientists believe that out of everywhere in our solar system, Europa is the most likely place to have life besides on Earth! Scientists are pretty confident that under Europa’s ice water surface is an ocean that may have twice as much […] Continue reading →

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Life on Mars

Posted on March 18, 2021 by gracelearnsspace

In an interview with USA Today, NASA Scientist Jim Green talked about the high possibility that humans can and will occupy Mars. He went as far as to say that he sees the first human being sent to Mars by 2040. However, before sending a human to Mars, NASA needs to figure out a few […] Continue reading →

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Spacecraft in the Milky Way

Posted on March 11, 2021 by gracelearnsspace

Since 1958 over 250 spacecraft have entered our solar system to explore and have given a little bit more insight to the huge universe around us. One of those spacecraft, Parker, is on a mission to get seven times closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft before. Parker was launched in 2018 by the […] Continue reading →

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Celestial Navigation

Posted on February 24, 2021 by gracelearnsspace

People have been using the stars to navigate for most of humankind. Six hundred years BC a philosopher called Thales of Miletos taught people to use the Little Bear constellation to navigate. What’s crazy is that those are the same stars that we say today! Despite there being other stars to navigate, the most common […] Continue reading →

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Historical Astronomers in Context

Posted on February 13, 2021 by gracelearnsspace

Nicholas Copernicus was born on February 19th, 1473 and died on May 24th, 1543 (Redd). Nicholas Copernicus’s biggest contribution to astronomy was the idea that the planets and Earth revolve around the sun, instead of everything revolving around Earth. He also claimed the Earth spins on its axis, and its revolution around the sun is […] Continue reading →

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An App to See the Stars

Posted on February 4, 2021 by gracelearnsspace

Have you ever looked up at the sky and wondered what constellation you were looking at? There are many tools out there to help you figure it out! One of them is SkyView Lite, an app offered on the Apple Store that identifies constellations for you and is free to download. Simply open the app […] Continue reading →

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Introduction

Posted on January 28, 2021 by gracelearnsspace

Class

Picture by me

Hello! This is my introductory post. I am a junior at Vanderbilt University majoring in Computer Science and minoring in MHS. I have little knowledge of astronomy and am excited to delve deeper into some interesting topics!… Continue reading →

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