Category Archives: General

Observing and Reddit

Interested in learning more about Astronomy or finding a community of people who love astronomy? Try the Astronomy subreddit on the website Reddit.com. They have monthly observing challenges and ask/answer all kinds of questions about astronomy. Some examples – “I want to spend my dying years observing the unknown universe from my roof. What’s the … Continue reading Observing and Reddit Continue reading

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The Most Astounding Fact

This has always been one of my favorite videos. It always make me think about how transient life is and what the important things in life are. It is so fascinating to think that the atoms that make up who I am and everything around me originated from the beginning of the universe and have … Continue reading The Most Astounding Fact Continue reading

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My Big Takeaway

Astronomy has taught me a lot of stuff about the universe that I didn’t know. What I will remember learning though is the size of our earth. Relative to our Sun, we are quite small. Relative to our solar system, we are barely visible, and relative to our galaxy, earth is nothing. The lesson is that … Continue reading My Big Takeaway Continue reading

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New Zealanders

Picture from here. Improvise, adapt, and overcome. That’s what the Marines say. That’s what Life does, when you put it under extreme circumstances. The Anglerfish is one example of this adaptation and in this post, I’d like to take a look at some much simpler examples known as extremophiles. My parents recently took a trip … Continue reading New Zealanders Continue reading

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The Future Looks Bright

<Video from post from here> Around a century ago, humanity thought we had finally conquered the final frontier – Antarctica. It was quite unfathomable for many to think that we could ever leave the confines of Earth, but within a matter of three and a half decades we succeeded in building the first aircraft, retrofitting … Continue reading The Future Looks Bright Continue reading

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Unaccountable Freak: A Story of Halley’s Comet

I’ve been interested in Halley’s comet for a long time. Something about the fact that it always come back, and the times when it will are so utterly predictable while being huge in terms of human conceptions of time, has … Continue reading Continue reading

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Ganymede Has a Hidden Ocean, and I Think That’s So Cool

Ganymede is my personal favorite moon (sorry, Luna) because it has a hidden ocean inside of it, and I cannot get over that! I mean, sandwiched in between an external layer of icy matters and the core is an entire … Continue reading Continue reading

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Astronomy Jargon

Some words I like. Here are some words I’ve encountered in astronomy I had not known elsewhere. Barycenter–The point of the center of mass between two or more bodies. Lagrangian points–Zones around the sun where an object placed there will orbit the sun relative the the Earth’s orbital progression. “Dwarf Planet”–The International Astronomical Union always […] Continue reading

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Is Pluto a planet?

A few weeks ago, I was discussing my astronomy class with a friend, when he interrupted to tell me his summation of the subject: “Spoiler Alert,” he told me. “Pluto isn’t a planet after all.” It wasn’t as thrilling as the … Continue reading Continue reading

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Observing the Night Sky

The website Sky and Telescope is very cool! It shows an easy to understand layout of what planets, stars, etc. you will be viewing in the night sky and where they will be moving throughout the night and week. It also gives you categories of different celestial objects you can try to search for in … Continue reading Observing the Night Sky Continue reading

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