Category Archives: Historical

Theia

For my last blog post I have decided to blog about something close to home. The Theia impact is also called the Big Splash, and is a hypothesis as to how we got our moon. The theory is that a mars-sized planetesimal impacted our proto-earth in its early life. This massive impact essentially shredded TheiaContinue reading “Theia” Continue reading

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The Golden Record

In 1977, a cool year for space enthusiasts and film buffs, NASA launched two spacecrafts known as Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. These crafts passed by Jupiter and Saturn, taking advantage of their alignment at that time. Voyager 2 also flew by Uranus and Neptune, and is now traveling across the vast expanse of interstellarContinue reading “The Golden Record” Continue reading

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Blog 6 Aristotle’s cosmology

In this blog, I would like to introduce Aristotle’s model of the universe. The cosmic theory from Aristotle is clearly wrong from the view of modern science. However, before modern astronomy was developed, Aristotle’s ideas about our world dominated people’s belief for thousands of years. It was embraced by scholars, philosophers, and religious leaders asContinue reading “Blog 6 Aristotle’s cosmology” Continue reading

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Halley in History

Halley’s comet is one thought to have been noted in history millennia before it was ever realized that it was the same comet passing Earth every 75 years. The first official record of the comet’s passing was 239 BCE by Chinese astronomers, but it’s thought that it might have been recorded by the Ancient GreeksContinue reading “Halley in History” Continue reading

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What’s in a name?: Gonggong & Xiangliu

Much like many of their small world counterparts, Gonggong and Xianglu are a dwarf planet and moon (respectively) named after characters in mythology. Gonggong, a dwarf planet residing in the scattered disc beyond Neptune, is named after a Chinese water god. Gonggong is depicted as having a copper human head, read hair, and a dragon-likeContinue reading “What’s in a name?: Gonggong & Xiangliu” Continue reading

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The Journeyman of ALL Comets

In the past few weeks, scientists have revealed a major discovery about details from a comet that we have now identified came from an entirely different Solar System! This comet has been deemed as, “more pristine,” than any other comets examined by scientists, simply from the properties of its origin. (Independent) The comet has beenContinue reading “The Journeyman of ALL Comets” Continue reading

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Historical Views of Comets

According to NASA, comets are “frozen leftovers from the formation of the solar system composed of dust, rock and ices.  They range from a few miles to tens of miles wide, but as they orbit closer to the sun, they heat up and spew gases and dust into a glowing head that can be largerContinue reading “Historical Views of Comets” Continue reading

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Caroline Herschel

Many are familiar with William Herschel, the man accredited with discovering Uranus, but lesser known is his sister: Caroline Herschel. Born March 16, 1750, Caroline Herschel was the first female professional astronomer. Growing up, Caroline’s mother did not support Caroline’s pursuit of an education. As a result, Caroline largely relied on her brother to learnContinue reading “Caroline Herschel” Continue reading

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Becoming One with Saturn

On September 17, 2017, NASA’s Cassini’s spacecraft exhausted its fuel supply. This marked the end of a 20 yearlong space exploration and 13 yearlong orbit around The planet Saturn. The Cassini Mission was monumental in more ways than one. It was the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn, first to land in the outer solar system, […] Continue reading

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The Iron Catastrophe

Many believe that under the Earth’s crust, deep within the center of our planet, lies a molten core of iron and nickel responsible for heating up the earth’s and being the source for the lava that flows form our volcanoes. This is an understandable misconception as the temperature of the core of the earth rivals […] Continue reading

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