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Author Archives: podolakvandysolarsystem
Voyager Golden Record – Reading the Instructions
On my last unrestricted blog post, I began a series of posts on my favorite topic in astronomy: The Voyager Golden Record. If you missed that blog post you can check it out here. Basically, the golden record is a message in a bottle being cast into the cosmic ocean. It will go very far […]
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Pluto – A Dwarf Planet
Pluto is a Dwarf planet in the ring of objects beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. Similar to other objects in the Kuiper Belt, Pluto is composed of rock and ice. Its orbital period is 248 Earth years, and has an inclined orbital path compared to all the planets whose paths lie in the ecliptic […]
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Radiocarbon Dating
Radiocarbon Dating is a method of determining how old an object is by the amount of carbon in it. The majority of organic matter contains carbon, and while carbon is not usually radioactive one of its isotopes, 14C is radioactive. This means that 14C will have a defined half-life, the amount of time is takes […]
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Gravitational Waves
One hundred years ago, Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity. This theory predicted that the acceleration of extremely massive objects would create ripples in the fabric of space-time, called gravitational waves. Just last week, a team of scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced that they had recorded a gravitational wave […]
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Posted in Stars
Tagged astro2110, astronomy, Blog 4, Gravitational Waves
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Geostationary Orbit – Calculations and GIF
Geostationary Orbit (GSO) is a specific type of orbit around the earth with a period of exactly one day, intentionally matching the rate of earth’s rotation. GSO is at zero inclination, meaning it is directly above the equator. This also means that a geostationary satellite will always be in the same point in the sky […]
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Historical Astronomers in Context – Newton
Q#2 Isaac Newton (Born January 4, 1643 Died March 31, 1727) was a mathematician, physicist, and contributed incredibly to humanity’s scientific knowledge. He created calculus, and formulated the laws of motion, the law of cooling, and universal gravitation. Newton constructed the first reflecting telescope. He observed how a prism splits white light into the visible spectrum […]
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Posted in Historical
Tagged astro2110, HW6, Newton, Uncategorized
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Are we at the center of the Universe?
It’s not surprising that at first, humans believed in a geocentric universe. When you look up at the night sky while standing on earth, it appears as though the sun, moon, and stars are moving around the earth. Now of course we know that this effect is actually due to the rotation of the earth […]
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Posted in Class, Stars
Tagged astro2110, astronomy, blog2, Geocentic, geocentrism, stabilized gifs
Comments Off on Are we at the center of the Universe?
Are we at the center of the Universe?
It’s not surprising that at first, humans believed in a geocentric universe. When you look up at the night sky while standing on earth, it appears as though the sun, moon, and stars are moving around the earth. Now of course we know that this effect is actually due to the rotation of the earth […] Continue reading
Posted in Class, Stars
Tagged astro2110, astronomy, blog2, Geocentic, geocentrism, stabilized gifs
Comments Off on Are we at the center of the Universe?
The Speed of Light
The speed of light is very, very fast, almost incomprehensibly fast. It is unusual to think that whenever we see an object, light is bouncing off that object and hitting our eye. We perceive this to be instantaneous, but it actually takes some infinitesimal amount of time for light to travel from nearby objects to […]
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