Author Archives: Seth Creech

Blog 8: Culmination of the Course

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Seth Creech

Picture: Potentially viable planets visualization ASTRO 2110 was my fourth astronomy class that I have taken here at Vanderbilt, and it was also one of my favorites. Astronomy is seen by many as interesting but irrelevant, so it was nice getting a deeper understanding of the most relevant parts of the universe to us by […] Continue reading →

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Blog 7: The Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Seth Creech

Pictured Above: ET from the movie ET The universe is almost infinitely large, and there are many planets that appear habitable in our astronomical observations. These worlds are commonly a comparable distance from their parent star, replete with suitable levels of specific elements, and in many ways are indistinguishable from Earth. Despite all of this, […] Continue reading →

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Historical Astronomers in Context— Galileo

Posted on April 26, 2024 by Seth Creech

Picture of Galileo Galileo (February 15, 1564 – January 8, 1642) made major strides in the argument for heliocentrism, observing sunspots and the phases of Venus, two pieces of information that seemed to point to the imperfection of the celestial world and that the Sun was the gravitational center of the Solar System about which […] Continue reading →

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Blog 6: The Solar Eclipse Today

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Seth Creech

This is my picture of the solar eclipse from today. The fact that eclipses even happen is one of the craziest coincidences, as the difference in relative size of the Moon and the Sun is the same percentage-wise, meaning that when the Moon is exactly in front of the Sun, it completely blocks it. There […] Continue reading →

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Blog 5: The Controversy Behind Pluto’s Planethood

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Seth Creech

Pluto orbits our Sun far out past Neptune, and has been the source of controversy as we have learned more about it. The argument centers around whether this celestial object should be defined as a planet or a dwarf planet. This leads to an even bigger question: what separates a dwarf planet from a planet? […] Continue reading →

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Blog 4: Systema Cosmicum

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Seth Creech

History Channel Portrait of Galileo Galileo was one of, if not the most revolutionary astronomer of all time. He lived at a point where the Catholic Church controlled a large section of public and private life, but they were also seeing their power wane through the Protestant Reformation, championed by Martin Luther (among others). The […] Continue reading →

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Combining Forces: Nuclear Fusion in the Solar System

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Seth Creech

Business Insider Ignition Image Shown above is from the National Ignition Facility, where scientists successfully produced (and reproduced) a nuclear fusion reaction that had more energy output than input. The underlying math behind this lies in E=mc2, which shows that Mass (m) can be converted into a large amount of energy at the sacrifice of […] Continue reading →

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Blog 2— Historical Context: the Ptolemaic Model

Posted on February 14, 2024 by Seth Creech

The Ptolemaic Model stood as the most accurate way to predict the movement of planets for 1,500 years, even though it was a geocentric model. This obviously serious error in the model caused there to be small inaccuracies in the predictive abilities of the model, but it was the best incorrect model created, so it […] Continue reading →

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Blog Post 1— The Vast Size and Scale of the Universe

Posted on February 14, 2024 by Seth Creech

A collection of many galaxies that shows the vastness of the universe Humans have never travelled outside of our solar system because we are technologically unable to do so. Yet the solar system is only a tiny fraction of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and the Milky Way Galaxy is only a fraction of the […] Continue reading →

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Blog Post 0

Posted on February 13, 2024 by Seth Creech

Lost Valley Ranch

Description: This is a picture of Lost Valley Ranch where I worked this summer.
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