Author Archives: sahilreddy2

Asteroid Mining

Hayabusa: A robotic spacecraft by JAXA to acquire a sample from the asteroid Itokawa Asteroid mining can be crucial in helping us to acquire rare materials in our solar system. The asteroid belt has 8% metal-rich asteroids and 75% volatile-rich carbonaceous asteroids.  Currently the technique is mainly just theoretical as we don’t have the infrastructure […] Continue reading

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The Fermi Paradox

A possible solution to the Fermi Paradox? The Fermi Paradox attempts to answer the question about extraterrestrial life that so many humans have thought about for centuries. Enrico Fermi a physicist, in 1950, while discussing extraterrestrial life he began to wonder if aliens did in fact exist then how have they not expanded throughout the […] Continue reading

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Halley’s Comet

Giotto Spacecraft Approaching Halley’s Comet Halley’s Comet has the ability to completely destroy a city. Until learning about this comet in a previous homework assignment I never realized the true devastation even a comet of this size could cause on the earth. Halley’s Comet most famous observation occurred in 1066 where it was said that […] Continue reading

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The Frozen World: Pluto

Pluto’s Icey Surface taken from the New Horizons Spacecraft Pluto is one of the most interesting “planets” in our solar system and for decades now has had constant debate surrounding it. Pluto has an extremely thin atmosphere, one that is a lot thinner than ours on earth that is made up of primarily nitrogen. Its […] Continue reading

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The International Space Station

The international space station is a collaboration that unites humanity to pursue the largest frontier, space. The ISS is the largest and most equipped space station humanity has ever had in space and provides opportunities to research exploration of space and how to help people back on earth. The ISS orbits the earth 386 kilometers […] Continue reading

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Climate Change

CO2 Emissions in Different Continents Climate Change is one of the most important issues that has already affected our lives and one that threatens our future. To get an understanding we need to look back in history to when human’s began to cause a shift in the climate. In the 1800s, humans began the industrial […] Continue reading

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The Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble Telescope First Light Image (May 1990) The Hubble Space Telescope was one of the most impactful inventions in furthering our understanding of the universe. Launched in 1990, this telescope provided us with detailed information of our solar system and universe. Some of the incredible discoveries the Hubble has made are determining the age of […] Continue reading

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Historical Astronomers in Context

Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, and died on November 15, 1630. He was crucial for advances in Astronomy as he discovered that the Earth and planets travel the sun in elliptical orbits. Furthermore, he also created three laws (called Kepler’s Law’s) that were integral to planetary motion. These laws stated that the […] Continue reading

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The Incredible Size of Our Universe

The image above is an artist’s illustration of everything in the observable universe. I find this image very interesting as it shows the scale increasing starting with our solar system and going out to galaxies, superclusters, our local group and further. This makes me realize how small we truly are in comparison to the universe […] Continue reading

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Introductory Blog

This is a picture of me from my senior year in high school in New Jersey. I am currently a junior at Vanderbilt studying Electrical Engineering and am excited to be taking this class. I would like to work with microprocessors in the future as my job. … Continue reading

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