Category Archives: Class

Blog 1: Asymmetry of the Moon

By looking at the image above, it’s clear to see that the dark splotches we’ve come to associate with our closest cosmic neighbor, the Moon, are only seen on one side! The farside of the moon is much more uniform with a lot more craters than the side we see. This stark difference has puzzled […] Continue reading

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Blog 1: Scale of the Universe

It is difficult to truly grasp the size and scale of our universe. And while using units like light years might be helpful in some cases, it can also be helpful to put things in a scale that is more common in everyday life. This image helps me understand the scale of the universe in […] Continue reading

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Introductory Post

By me – this is a photo of my sister and I at our favorite beach in Nantucket Island. This is where I first became fascinated with space; there is little light pollution here and for as far back as I can remember, I have stared at the night sky for hours at a time […] Continue reading

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The Speed of Light

In 1905, Albert Einstein took the first crack at the Newtonian foundational physics. In his paper on special relativity, Albert Einstein postulated that the speed of light, c, is constant in all inertial reference frames. Assume that a person on a bicycle is holding a flashlight and moving at a constant speed relative to someone […] Continue reading

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It’s not a phase, Mom! ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

One thing I love about the nighttime is getting to see the different phases of the Moon in different times of its cycle. The Moon cycle consists of 8 phases as you can see in the picture below, and lasts 29.5 days, which is around one month! In this period, we see the Moon go from […] Continue reading

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Humans and Light Speed

by me The speed of light is around 300,000,000 meters per second. It’s so fast that it can circle the Earth 7.5 times in one second. I always wondered if humans can ever achieve speeds the same as light, but we’ve only managed to go 176,462 meters per second with the Nasa Parker Solar Probe. […] Continue reading

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The Universe is HUGE

Size: Planet vs. Solar System. vs. Galaxy For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the vastness of the Universe and how everything around us has been untouched by humans. Everyone lives on Earth (unless you are an alien…). Yet, Earth is only one of eight planets in our solar system. […] Continue reading

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Chapters 1 and 2

Something that I thought was interesting about the readings was the concept of the speed of light, but more specifically how it applies to space travel. We know, based on looking out into the universe, that the universe is about ~14 billion years old. Obviously this means, that if we were to travel at the […] Continue reading

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The Zodiac and Ascribing Meaning to a Random Existence

Britannica The twelve Zodiac signs are the most famous (and infamous, if you talk to scientists) way of imposing order and grouping onto our lives. Personality tests, Harry Potter houses (which have to be the laziest version out there), “What sandwich am I?” quizzes, these all apply a person’s traits and responses to fundamental questions […] Continue reading

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Speed of light in Space

Picture by: FlashMovie/Shutterstock Light moves pretty fast. It actually moves the FASTEST out of anything that we know of (for now). Light moves at about 300,000 kilometers per second. When I’m in a rush on the freeway, I drive up to 145 kilometers per hour (90 miles per hour) which is only 0.04 kilometers a […] Continue reading

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