Author Archives: YanruChen

Miller-Urey experiment

Posted on April 29, 2013 by YanruChen

One of the most mysterious questions of human beings is that: how did life come to existence? Where did first trace of life come from? One hypothesis is that conditions and elements on early Earth gave rise to the first single-cell organism. To testify this hypothesis, chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey animated the conditions […] Continue reading →

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Tardigrade – Water Bear!

Posted on April 29, 2013 by YanruChen

This is one of the most amazing animals on Earth! It has a very geeky name “tardigrade”, but is also known as water bear as it lives in water. It can live in most extreme conditions from just above absolute zero to above the temperature of boiling water. It can also withstand dehydration, extreme pressures […] Continue reading →

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Comets and Meteor Showers

Posted on April 10, 2013 by YanruChen

Everybody loves comets. Just think of a flashy ball with a lovely tail crossing the night sky. How beautiful it is! Most people like me have many misconceptions about comets however. The most surprising thing about comets I learned from Astronomy 201 is that meteor showers are actually from comets! How can that be? The […] Continue reading →

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Stories about Europa

Posted on April 10, 2013 by YanruChen

Among four Galilean moons, my favorite one is Europa. Known as the water world, Europa has huge abundance of liquid water beneath its icy surface. Let’s take a closer look of how this extrapolation of liquid water on Europa. Water is suspected to be the agency that erases Europa’s relatively young surface. The double-ridges on […] Continue reading →

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We are all star stuff

Posted on March 20, 2013 by YanruChen

Although our bodies are made mainly of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, this composition is not consistent with our solar system. The most significant elements of our solar system are hydrogen, which is about 74% of all elements, and helium, 24%. The rest 2% of the solar system is heavier elements from the explosion of massive stars […] Continue reading →

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The Birth of Solar System

Posted on March 20, 2013 by YanruChen

It is so amazing that we live in such an organized solar system. Most planets rotate in the same direction as the Sun’s rotation, and of all planets are very close to the same plane. A theory of solar system formation must explain all these characteristics. The nebular theory seems to explain these phenomena neatly. […] Continue reading →

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Conservation of Angular Momentum and Kepler’s Second Law

Posted on February 19, 2013 by YanruChen

Conservation laws are very important laws for celestial objects in the universe. Without conservation laws, all these celestial objects will not obey predictable motions as they do in this universe. I am going to talk about conservation of angular momentum in this post. Any objects orbiting or rotating have angular momentum. To change angular momentum […] Continue reading →

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Physics of Gravity

Posted on February 19, 2013 by YanruChen

What is physics? I have been studying physics since elementary school, but I was never really taught about the definition of physics. My personal understanding of physics is that it is a study of the law of the nature. The nature of physics is truly mysterious. Why do things obey the same law? Why can […] Continue reading →

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Historical Astronomers in Context

Posted on February 5, 2013 by YanruChen

Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726) is a milestone in the scientific history. He studied laws of physics and mathematics, invented calculus as a means to calculate the orbits of celestial objects. He summarized three laws of motion, and came up with the explanation of the gravity, the reason why we stand […] Continue reading →

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Lunar Eclipses

Posted on January 28, 2013 by YanruChen

The lunar eclipse happens when the Earth lies directly between the Sun and the Moon. The Earth thus cast a shadow on the Moon, and we will not see the light reflected by the Moon therefore. The shadow of the Earth consists of two parts: a central umbra, and a surrounding penumbra. Umbra blocks sunlight […] Continue reading →

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