Category Archives: Historical

12 Billion Miles Away and On Your TV

Posted on April 23, 2017 by Natalie

Ever wondered how a probe called Voyager managed to make it 12 billion miles away from this pale blue dot? … More Continue reading →

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Pluto the Dwarf Planet

Posted on March 27, 2017 by josiezd

Many of us remember Pluto as the used-to-be 9th planet in our solar system that was demoted to a dwarf planet. So what makes Pluto a dwarf planet and not a planet? What is interesting about Pluto, and, if it was so small, how exactly was it discovered earlier than other dwarf planets? Continue reading →

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Blog 4- Voyager Missions and Chuck Berry

Posted on March 22, 2017 by sullivrs

Music fans around the world mourned the loss of Chuck Berry after his death on March 18th.  Credited by many as the original rocker, his use of the double stop, his stage presence, and masterful songwriting skills came to define what a rocker should aspire to emulate. When the Voyager Program was officially kicked off… Continue reading →

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Formation of the Solar System

Posted on March 20, 2017 by josiezd

Approximately 13.8 billion years ago, an interstellar cloud of gas known as the solar nebula collapsed under its own gravity due to some cataclysmic event… Continue reading →

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Blog 2 – Occam’s Razor

Posted on February 15, 2017 by johnjohnb4

For my second blog, I thought I’d discuss the idea of simplicity in astronomy; specifically, the idea of Occam’s Razor.  One of the hallmarks of science is the progression of creation and testing of models of nature that explain scientific observations as simply as possible.  This idea, that scientists should prefer the simpler of two […] Continue reading →

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Blog 1 – Cosmic Calendar

Posted on February 15, 2017 by johnjohnb4

For my first blog, I wanted to discuss the cosmic calendar.  From the picture below, you can see, from a human bias, the five most important events in universal history, symbolized in the julian calendar: the big bang in january, the formation of the milky way in march, the development of the solar system in […] Continue reading →

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Blog #2

Posted on February 14, 2017 by niharikadar

For most contemporary scholars, the modern telescope owes its existence to Enlightenment thinkers who crafted the device to enhance their own stargazing endeavors. However, observing the night sky is hardly a practice that has been limited to the past few hundred years.  Thus, it seems likely that there may have been telescopic structures created much … Continue reading Blog #2 Continue reading →

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The Era of Long Refractors

Posted on February 14, 2017 by Nick Belsten

Telescopes focus light down to a point to increase the light gathering capacity of the astronomer’s eye. The optimal shape for such focus is a parabola, either a parabolic mirror, or a refracting lens of parabolic shape. Unfortunately, parabolic lenses do not have the same curvature everywhere the way spherical lenses do, making their construction … Continue reading The Era of Long Refractors → Continue reading →

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Looking Through a Historical Lens

Posted on February 14, 2017 by ritam216

Much of science is the act of investigating phenomena and elaborating on such investigations done by others. This is an incredibly difficult task to accomplish with modern technology. Incredibly though, there is a great source of proof to show that many peoples of the past were able to make some form of astronomical discoveries and […] Continue reading →

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New Horizons

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Natalie

Way out on the edge of our Solar System, in the Kuiper Belt, lies an object that has held our fascination since 1930. Pluto! … More Continue reading →

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