Category Archives: General

Thoughts

Posted on April 28, 2015 by alephnulluniverse

People said that the current generation is born too early to explore space, yet born too late to explore Earth. I do not believe that to be true. Humans are learning and exploring space everyday through space probes, telescopes, and other instruments. While, the current generation will probably not be able to explore space physically, […] Continue reading →

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Thanks for a Wonderful Semester!

Posted on April 28, 2015 by abbeyrstephens

This has been an absolute whirlwind of a semester! There was not a class that went by in which I didn’t learn anything (and most of the time I learned multiple things)! And even though I feel like I understand solar systems and the universe a little better now, I can definitely say that the […] Continue reading →

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Astronomy, we need it!

Posted on April 28, 2015 by matthewrbirnbaum

Throughout two semesters of astronomy I have always been torn about its importance. On one hand the problems we face on Earth seem to trump anything that can happen is space, but on the other hand the more knowledge we obtain the more we are able to understand. What I started to realize towards the […] Continue reading →

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Is the Drake Equation Useful?

Posted on April 28, 2015 by matthewrbirnbaum

The idea behind the Drake equation is perfectly logically. Take the variables that most likely determine whether or not life exists, assign a value to those variables and calculate the number of civilizations. And to put the Drake equation in perspective I will quote the one, the only, Drake “I’ve never been reckless – always calculated.” That […] Continue reading →

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Extremophiles

Posted on April 28, 2015 by alephnulluniverse

Life outside of Earth can be hard to find. It was thought that life could not survive in our solar system outside of Earth. It would be too harsh for any living creature to survive. It is; except for extremophiles. Lichens showed promising results under Martian conditions. Escherichia coli and Paracoccus denitrificans not only survived, but […] Continue reading →

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My New Outlook on Space

Posted on April 27, 2015 by robbyks

Space has always been a fascinating thing to me. In the past, I would often find myself getting lost on Wikipedia reading articles about the Big Bang or the future of the Sun. When I was a kid, I had a recurring dream of traveling through space on a spaceship. Taking this course allowed me […] Continue reading →

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My Cosmic Perspective

Posted on April 26, 2015 by oliviasn

Coming into this course, I was already very interested in astronomy. I have always loved looking at the stars, and I had my first formal experiences with astronomy in Astronomy 102: Stars and Galaxies and Astronomy Lab last semester. Thus, I was extremely excited to continue my study of astronomy. I have remained intrigued about […] Continue reading →

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Astronomy in “The Big Bang Theory” and “Interstellar”

Posted on April 22, 2015 by jclyncmp

I originally came into Astronomy 201 just wanted to fulfill my last hours as a second-semester senior at Vanderbilt University with a subject I was interested in. Now that the course is coming its conclusion, the class has evolved into…

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Space has a lot of….space

Posted on April 6, 2015 by alephnulluniverse

Most people, including myself before ASTR201, have only seen seen the scaled models of the solar systems where planets are to scale but right next to each other. However, space is called space for a reason. You may have heard of the real life scaled down model, but you would never understand the true emptiness […] Continue reading →

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WASP-12b

Posted on April 5, 2015 by alephnulluniverse

WASP-12b is an HUGE planet that orbits extremely closely to its star. Due to the close distance (at 1/44 the distance compared to the distance between Earth and the Sun), WASP-12b has a very low densities from the flux of energy from the star and is being distorted into an egg shape. The most interesting […] Continue reading →

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