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Author Archives: YanruChen
Miller-Urey experiment
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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Tagged astro201, astrobiology, blog10, Miller-UreyExperiment
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Tardigrade – Water Bear!
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
Comets and Meteor Showers
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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Tagged astro201, blog8, comet, meteorshower
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Stories about Europa
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
We are all star stuff
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
The Birth of Solar System
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
Posted in Class, SolarSystem
Tagged astro201, birth, blog5
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Conservation of Angular Momentum and Kepler’s Second Law
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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Tagged angularmomentum, astro201, blog4, conservation, Kepler
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Physics of Gravity
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
Historical Astronomers in Context
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
Posted in Class, Historical
Tagged astro201, HW6, Newton
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Lunar Eclipses
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