Category Archives: Historical

blog post 06

Posted on April 17, 2022 by graceward02

In 2019, researchers captured the first image of a black hole. They were able to do this by having all the major radio telescopes on Earth act together to simulate a radio telescope that was the size of Earth. Before this, we could only see indirect evidence of the existence of black holes. This particular […] Continue reading →

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blog post 05

Posted on April 17, 2022 by graceward02

In 2006, Pluto was taken off the list of planets, leaving our Solar System with just 8 planets. This demotion occurred 76 years after Pluto was initially added to the list of planets. This decision by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) defined what objects could be classified as a planet. An object needs to be […] Continue reading →

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Pluto: from planet to dwarf planet

Posted on April 11, 2022 by Lindsey

Pluto is one of the six dwarf planets that we have currently identified in our solar system, and it was the first object discovered in the Kuiper belt. It was discovered in 1930 and was initially declared to be the ninth planet. However, when other objects were discovered in the Kuiper belt (like the dwarf […] Continue reading →

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Blog 6: Asteroids

Posted on April 7, 2022 by camsto42

On this Tuesday, April 5th, an asteroid the size of a house flew by the Earth. This asteroid flew by 79,000 miles away from us, which is actually pretty close. That distance is around 1/3 the distance between us and the Moon. Although there is always some panic that an asteroid could hit Earth, this […] 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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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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What was Theia?

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Charles Littleton

Theia was about the size of Mars. It orbited with Earth.  It crashed into the Earth and the debris helped create the moon. The core of Theia combined with the core of Earth. Scientists disagree on this and some believe that it formed into multiple moons. It is hypothesized to have orbited in the L4 […] Continue reading →

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History of our Solar System

Posted on March 21, 2022 by jschorr21

Approx. 13.8 billion years ago, everything we know and love in the universe was formed with The Big Bang. Fast-forwarding 9.2 billion years, we can start to see the formation of our Solar System. 4.6 billion years ago, what we call the Solar System was nothing but a large cloud of debris, gas, and dust […] Continue reading →

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Persevering through the trials of landing on Mars

Posted on March 21, 2022 by timmyshaheen

Space rovers can cost a space program billions of dollars to make; in fact, Perseverance cost NASA 2.7 billion dollars. (Planetary) With that much money, time, and effort being put into a project, it makes sense that those behind it, wish to actually see their hard work successfully operate. For this to happen, the rover […] Continue reading →

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Halley’s Comet

Posted on March 20, 2022 by jesszhang782

Halley’s Comet was the first comet understood to be a periodic comet, or a comet that can pass through the solar system multiple times. The English astronomer Edmund Halley (1656-1742) noticed that the previously recorded orbits of three comets were ve… Continue reading →

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