Category Archives: Class

Humanity’s Long-Term Future

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Jack Walton

For my third blog post, I wanted to research the future of Humanity. In about 5 billion years the Sun will run out of Hydrogen to fuse in the core, causing the sun to increase in size and become a Red Giant. It will get so large that it will swallow up Mercury, Venus, and […] Continue reading →

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Where does the speed of light come from?

Posted on March 22, 2022 by jschorr21

It might seem that the definition of the speed of light is simple–light can only physically go as fast as 300,000 km/s. This is true, but there is a lot more that goes into that number, and it doesn’t really have much to do with light. There is a lot more that goes into that […] Continue reading →

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blog post 04

Posted on March 22, 2022 by graceward02

Many people have traveling to see the Northern Lights on their bucket lists. This unique phenomenon typically occurs near the Arctic Circle, with places like Finland advertising tourist expeditions to see them. The Northern Lights, otherwise known as aurora, occur when ions from solar winds collide with atoms of different elements (oxygen, nitrogen) in Earth’s […] Continue reading →

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Jupiter’s Ganymede

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Sheila Chau

Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system; it’s even larger than Mercury. It also has a thin oxygen atmosphere and a magnetosphere.  There’s recently been a discovery that Ganymede has a salty ocean that is greater than all of Earth’s water.  It’s extremely fascinating that Ganymede has a salty ocean that has more…Continue reading » Continue reading →

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blog post 03

Posted on March 22, 2022 by graceward02

Nuclear fusion reactions power stars. In nuclear fusion, 2 atoms’ nuclei merge and form a heavier single nucleus. The leftover mass becomes energy. In stars like the Sun, this is generally the transformation of Hydrogen to Helium (proton-proton chain). Other, more massive stars, use the CNO cycle (uses more elements) to accomplish energy transformation. The […] Continue reading →

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Kepler Supernova

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Kaitlyn Lane

The image above is of Kepler’s Supernova, which Johannes Kepler is credited with discovering with his description of the stellar object in his De Stella Nova. As stars progress through their main sequence lifetime and beyond and use up more of their hydrogen in nuclear fusion, they can fuse heavier and heavier elements. More massive […] Continue reading →

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Origins of the Solar System

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Sheila Chau

It’s interesting to think about the formation of the solar system and how the gasses that originally created it are still a part of our solar system. The origins of the solar system can be explained by the nebular theory. The nebular theory suggests that our solar system was formed from the gravitational collapse of…Continue reading » Continue reading →

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Nuclear Fusion

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Kaitlyn Lane

Nuclear fusion is a reaction between molecules where nuclei are combined to form different atomic nuclei and particles, releasing energy. This process powers main sequence stars through stellar nucleosynthesis. Stellar nucleosynthesis can only occur at extremely high temperatures in the cores of stars. Depending on the mass of the stars, i.e. the pressure and temperature […] Continue reading →

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Time Dilation

Posted on March 22, 2022 by jadonroy

As with most impressionable children growing up, the fascination of space and the many wonders it holds stems from watching certain movies or television shows that help portray these wonders. I was no exception to this as I was completely awestruck when I watched Christopher Nolan’s brilliant film, Interstellar. Despite containing a masterfully crafted story […] Continue reading →

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The Likelihood of Getting Hit with a Gamma-Ray Burst

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Karan Bhardwaj

A gamma ray burst is expected to hit Earth every 10,000 years to 1,000,000 years. How would this affect human society as we know it, why are gamma rays so dangerous, and can we do anything to stop it? Gamma ray bursts are extremely energetic spouts of energy, and similar to visible light, are part […] Continue reading →

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