Category Archives: Class

Chemical Composition of Exoplanet Atmospheres

Posted on March 12, 2019 by richardficek

One goal of studying exoplanet atmospheres is to understand its composition and temperature. Specifically, we want to be able to recognize planets that could potentially have atmospheres most similar to Earth’s (with water vapor, oxygen, ozone, and carbon dioxide) – with the main objective being to find planets with strong water features that could support … Continue reading Chemical Composition of Exoplanet Atmospheres → Continue reading →

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Sun Facts

Posted on March 12, 2019 by richardficek

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System and is a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma. Its diameter is about 1.39 million kilometers (864,000 miles) – 109 times that of Earth – and its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth. The Sun accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System and its … Continue reading Sun Facts → Continue reading →

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Exploration and Geology of Mercury

Posted on March 12, 2019 by jordyn27

Because it is so technically difficult to reach Mercury with spacecraft’s from Earth, the geology of Mercury is understood the least of all the terrestrial worlds. The main reason it is so hard to reach is due to how close Mercury is to the Sun.  When a spacecraft moves down Sun’s gravitational potential well to … Continue reading Exploration and Geology of Mercury → Continue reading →

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Gravity and Sun Size

Posted on March 12, 2019 by JSpin

Gravity as the Driving Force The Sun has a mass of 2 * 10^30 kg. Gravity exerts a compression force on the Sun proportional to this immense mass. So why doesn’t the sun collapse under the weight of its gravity? The pressure of the center of the Sun is about 340 billion times the air … Continue reading Gravity and Sun Size → Continue reading →

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NASA’s Mars 2020 Mission

Posted on March 9, 2019 by kylebward

In 2020, sometime from July 17th to August 5th during the rover’s launch window, NASA will send a rover to Mars to try to answer a question being asked for over a century: was there life on Mars? The objective of the Mars 2020 Mission is to search for signs of previous microbial life as … Continue reading NASA’s Mars 2020 Mission → Continue reading →

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Electric Cars and Climate Change

Posted on March 9, 2019 by kylebward

Climate change is the change in global climate patterns due to an increase in fossil fuels. A solution to mitigate these emissions released by fossil fuels is converting automobiles to use only electric energy. However, the electricity used by electric vehicles also generates harmful emissions due to power plants that use fossil fuels to generate … Continue reading Electric Cars and Climate Change → Continue reading →

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How to Find Orion in the Night Sky

Posted on March 8, 2019 by Jiayu Kang

One of the most famous and recognizable constellations, Orion is most visible in the evening sky, winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It was named after a hunter in Greek Mythology, Orion. Rigel, a blue-white supergiant, and Betelgeuse, a red supergiant, are the brightest stars in Orion. Thousands of newly formed stars can be found in … Continue reading How to Find Orion in the Night Sky → Continue reading →

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The Star-Crossed Fates of Phobos and Deimos

Posted on March 5, 2019 by chiefkeith7

The planet Mars was named after Mars, who to the Romans was the God of War. Its two moons, Phobos and Deimos, carry the names of the Greek Gods of fear (from which we get phobia) and terror, respectively. However, despite the naming scheme that seems to be inspired by Death Metal, Phobos and Deimos … Continue reading The Star-Crossed Fates of Phobos and Deimos → Continue reading →

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Venera, or the Soviets’ many attempts to reach Venus

Posted on March 5, 2019 by chiefkeith7

Despite being the sister planet of Earth, Venus is far from hospitable. Very far. Its atmospheric pressure at the surface is 92 times that of Earth’s, has an average surface temperature of 863 degrees Fahrenheit, and at higher latitudes sulphuric acid rains onto the surface. So what better force could there be to attempt to … Continue reading Venera, or the Soviets’ many attempts to reach Venus → Continue reading →

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Awesome Planetary Formation Videos

Posted on February 27, 2019 by drgrundstrom

I’d love to show you a whole bunch of videos that show planetary formation! Some showcase certain parts of formation better than others but they all are pretty awesome. Beginning of Solar System formation (from gas cloud to disk) from ESA (0:39) Why is the Solar System Flat? from Minute Physics (3:12) Planetary Formation – […] Continue reading →

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