Category Archives: Class

Ancient History of Eclipses

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Justin Kim

Hello all! In honor of the partial solar eclipse we got to briefly see in Nashville on Monday, I wanted to explore some of the interesting history of eclipses. The first known recording of an eclipse was from November 30th in 3340 BCE in Ireland. This discovery was based on “overlapping circular rock carvings, called […] Continue reading →

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Blog 6: The Solar Eclipse Today

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Seth Creech

This is my picture of the solar eclipse from today. The fact that eclipses even happen is one of the craziest coincidences, as the difference in relative size of the Moon and the Sun is the same percentage-wise, meaning that when the Moon is exactly in front of the Sun, it completely blocks it. There […] Continue reading →

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Blog 5: The Controversy Behind Pluto’s Planethood

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Seth Creech

Pluto orbits our Sun far out past Neptune, and has been the source of controversy as we have learned more about it. The argument centers around whether this celestial object should be defined as a planet or a dwarf planet. This leads to an even bigger question: what separates a dwarf planet from a planet? […] Continue reading →

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The Eclipse Almost Stole My Sight

Posted on April 8, 2024 by The Cosmic Traveler

by Marca On Monday, April 8, 2024, North America witnessed a solar eclipse, and it almost blinded me. But before I talk about that, what is a solar eclipse? A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon moves between the Sun and the Earth, which blocks the Sun totally or partially and casts a shadow on […] Continue reading →

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nASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Angela Harris

The sample return capsule from the OSIRIS-REx mission OSIRIS-REx was NASA’s mission to collect a sample from the asteroid Bennu. In September 2023, OSIRIS-REx returned to Earth to drop off material from Bennu.  OSIRIS-REx continued on a new mission, OSIRIS-APEX. The objective of the new mission is to study Apophis, which the spacecraft will reach […] Continue reading →

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Solar Eclipse

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Tejas Mahesh

Being in Nashville, I saw a partial solar eclipse today. It was unfortunate that it was extremely cloudy. Hence, the solar eclipse showed up once in a couple minutes. The clouds proved to be an excellent source of shades. So much so, that the combination of the thick clouds and the eclipse glasses blocked out […] Continue reading →

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bLOG 6: HOW MUCH DOES SIZE MATTER (FOR VOLCANISM and CRYOVOLCANISM)?

Posted on April 8, 2024 by matthewastro

Even some of the smallest world in our solar system exhibit (or have exhibited) evidence of volcanism or cryovolcanism. Asteroids like Vesta, with radii of only several hundred kilometers, displays features that indicate that they once exhibited active volcanism and even separation by differentiation. Although their volcanism lasted for periods that were geologically very brief, […] Continue reading →

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Water on the Moon?

Posted on April 8, 2024 by liamoneill95

We first landed on the moon over 50 years ago, but despite the relative feasibility of going back to the moon, we have only conducted a few missions since then for people to travel to our closest celestial neighbor. Why is that? Going to the moon is incredibly expensive, and there’s always been little reason […] Continue reading →

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Earth’s Distant Twin

Posted on April 8, 2024 by liamoneill95

Kepler-186F is an exoplanet that exhibits strikingly similar characteristics to Earth. The planet is roughly the size of Earth, and is within the “habitable zone” of its red dwarf star, Kepler-186. The habitable zone implies that due to its distance from its star, it’s very possible that the exoplanet could have liquid water on its […] Continue reading →

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Brown Dwarfs

Posted on April 7, 2024 by Owen Purcell

One of the most interesting bodies in the universe is the brown dwarf, a small world a few times the size of Jupiter. These are interesting because they do not fit cleanly into our definitions of stars and planets. They are technically under the category of star, but this is due in most part to […] Continue reading →

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