Category Archives: Instruments

includes telescopes and space probes

The Continual Search for Planets

Posted on February 14, 2015 by conorastr201

The discovery of new life-harboring planets has been a hot topic in the last century, but there has always been a limitation: we couldn’t see other planets. However, observational technologies and techniques have progressed to the point where we may be able to find more Earth-like planets within a few short years. The main problems […] Continue reading →

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The Early Telescopes

Posted on February 14, 2015 by alephnulluniverse

The earliest working telescopes was made around 1608 with many who claimed its discovery. The design was simple; a convex objective lens and a concave eyepiece allowed the user to see further. In 1655, astronomers had build more powerful telescopes using a design by Kepler. This design used a convex objective lens and a convex […] Continue reading →

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Weight is just a number!

Posted on February 12, 2015 by karenagrebenc

picture from storejpg.com Weight IS just a number-it’s simply the product of the mass of an object and the force put on that object due to gravity!  Since the number is dependent on gravity, it’s totally logical that, since the force of gravity from the Sun is different in different locations in the Solar system […] Continue reading →

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What Comes After Hubble?

Posted on February 12, 2015 by robbyks

The Hubble Space Telescope, in use for about 25 years, will soon have to be retired in the next 5-10 years. Plans for a successor telescope eventually materialized into the James Webb Space Telescope, pictured below as a full scale model in Austin, TX. As big as a tennis court and as tall as a […] Continue reading →

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The first navigational tool

Posted on February 12, 2015 by karenagrebenc

Image from kaloujm.com People have been using the sky as their source of navigation for years, and one of the first tools made for the purpose of aiding in navigation (that wasn’t a body part!) was the kamal.  The exact date is unsure, but it’s estimated that this tool came into use around the fifth […] Continue reading →

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Hubble Telescope

Posted on February 11, 2015 by pgolemanska

In April 1990 NASA launched the Hubble Telescope in an orbit around Earth. The telescope has been orbiting Earth for almost 25 years and is monumental in its contribution to science. The information gathered by the telescope has helped astronomers to narrow down the age of the universe down to a few hundred million years, […] Continue reading →

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Faster than the Speed of Light

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Marissa LePore

In summer of 2013, the New York Times published an article about NASA’s (then) newest project. Physicists and engineers were trying to determine whether “warp drive” might one day be possible. Warp drive, for those of you who are not Trekkies, is traveling faster than the speed of light or 3.0 x 10^5 km/s, and thus far […] Continue reading →

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Avoiding Asteroids

Posted on April 9, 2014 by thomasridgway

We currently do not have any way of deflecting asteroids coming dangerously close to us. Although there aren’t any predicted …

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80% of the Universe That We Can’t See

Posted on April 8, 2014 by joshkphilips

Image Source Over the past couple of centuries, we have learned a great deal about our Universe. However, the more we seem to learn about the cosmos, the more we realize that we do not understand. When Jan Oort and Fritz Zwicky first hypothesized the existence of dark matter in our Universe, a breakthrough in […] Continue reading →

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NASA’s Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities Initiative

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Leigh

NASA has had a lot of success with their commercial space flight initiatives, and so is looking to branch out and extend offers to work with US private enterprises to offer more, new commercial space experiences. NASA is looking for … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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