Category Archives: Class

Blog Post 7: What Will Happen If We Do Find Life Out There In Space?

Posted on April 30, 2023 by Myles7235

The common question when thinking about life in space is always “Is there even life in space”? But few people think about what would actually happen next if we were to find life out there beyond the stars. If we ever do receive a message from extraterrestrial beings, many people have this vision of it […] Continue reading →

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Launching Spacecraft with Nuclear Bombs

Posted on April 30, 2023 by Trevor Pillow

You might be familiar with the Orion Spacecraft, which is the vehicle being used in NASA’s Artemis series of lunar missions. However, have you ever heard of Project Orion? Most conventional spacecraft are propelled using chemical reactions which create high velocity exhaust that is focused through a rocket nozzle. Newton’s Third Law dictates that the […] Continue reading →

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Drake Equation

Posted on April 30, 2023 by shuhuaiwang

I have been thinking about whether there are civilizati […] Continue reading →

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Godzilla the Extremophile

Posted on April 30, 2023 by sadiekarr

(Diagram of the various conditions in which different types of extremophiles live) Extremophiles are organisms that live in, you guessed it, “extreme” environments, like volcanoes, the bottom of the ocean, acidic areas, etc. When we talked about extremophiles in class, we mostly looked at microbes and bacteria- the little guys. But I want to talk […] Continue reading →

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Astrobiology & The Search For Life

Posted on April 30, 2023 by brandodan

Astrobiology is the study of life that occurs somewhere other than Earth, as we’ve learned in class, and this blog post emphasizes its developments and possible future directions. There have been substantial scientific, technological, and programmatic advances achieved in the hunt for extraterrestrial life since the 2015 publication of NASA’s Astrobiology Strategy. Understanding the beginnings […] Continue reading →

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Blog 7 – The Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 30, 2023 by constellationsarentreal

When learning astronomy, one often wonders if humanity is alone in the galaxy. Physicist Enrico Fermi pondered this question, and ultimately came to a rather profound conclusion. Statistically our galaxy should be home to at least a handful of advanced societies more than capable of interstellar travel, so why have we not encountered any? Fermi […] Continue reading →

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Asteroid Mining

Posted on April 30, 2023 by sahilreddy2

Hayabusa: A robotic spacecraft by JAXA to acquire a sample from the asteroid Itokawa Asteroid mining can be crucial in helping us to acquire rare materials in our solar system. The asteroid belt has 8% metal-rich asteroids and 75% volatile-rich carbonaceous asteroids.  Currently the technique is mainly just theoretical as we don’t have the infrastructure […] Continue reading →

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The Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 30, 2023 by sahilreddy2

A possible solution to the Fermi Paradox? The Fermi Paradox attempts to answer the question about extraterrestrial life that so many humans have thought about for centuries. Enrico Fermi a physicist, in 1950, while discussing extraterrestrial life he began to wonder if aliens did in fact exist then how have they not expanded throughout the […] Continue reading →

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What’s Next?

Posted on April 29, 2023 by alicebyrnes

While I’ve always been vaguely interested in astronomy, before taking this class some part of my brain assumed we had somewhat stagnated on space exploration. This is largely because I knew other stars and galaxies were so far away, and we just don’t have the technology to travel to them. Ultimately, this class helped me […] Continue reading →

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Where Are All the Aliens? Potential Solutions to the Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 29, 2023 by Europa

In class, Dr. G mentioned a Wait But Why article about the Fermi Paradox. I absolutely love this article and the entire concept of the Fermi Paradox–I even wrote about it in my Common App essay four years ago! The Fermi Paradox, first informally presented by physicist Enrico Fermi, describes the apparent contradiction between our […] Continue reading →

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