Category Archives: Light

The Crab Nebula

Posted on April 10, 2016 by astr2110geoffren

When a star dies, it goes supernova and shoots everything that it was once made of across space. The explosion that formed the Crab Nebula was first documented by the Chinese in 1054 AD. Though, you didn’t need to be an astronomer to recognize the explosion or its resulting nebula. The Crab Nebula was visible for […] Continue reading →

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Solar Sails

Posted on April 10, 2016 by chasejaeger

Currently, we do not have the technology to travel to even the closest stars. The fastest spacecraft humans have ever built is the Voyager 1, which is currently traveling at roughly 17 km/s. However, even at these speeds it would take the Voyager I nearly 70,000 years to get to the nearest star system, Alpha […] Continue reading →

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The Darkest Planet in the Universe

Posted on April 10, 2016 by nickwtheastronomer

The planet sullenly staring back at you is TrES-2b and no it is not just going through a phase, this exoplanet is indeed the universe’s ultimate goth. TrES-2b is a gas giant which was first detected in 2006 by the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES) employing the transit method of exoplanet discovery. In the transit method […] Continue reading →

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Dyson Spheres on the Horizon?

Posted on March 15, 2016 by nickwtheastronomer

We may be getting one step closer to the fabled hallmark of an advanced civilization, the Dyson Sphere. Pioneered by Freeman Dyson in the 1960s, a Dyson Sphere takes the process of energy generation to a level literally out of this world. A Dyson Sphere is a massive assemblage of solar energy collectors placed in […] Continue reading →

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When the Sun Shows Off

Posted on March 15, 2016 by evinske

  There’s a spectacular light show every year at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. The grand venue boasts thousands and thousands of lights each year around Christmas. Yet, you don’t have to find a $30 parking spot at a debatably overrated hotel to see a grand, sparkling event. In fact, there’s a place giving […] Continue reading →

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The Orion Nebula

Posted on March 15, 2016 by annamcc9

Nasa’s website overlays two images of the Orion Nebula, utilizing information from both the Spitzer Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope. This image shows the cosmic cloud, within which astronomers believe more than a thousand young stars are forming. There are four in particular, found near the center of the cloud, that are particularly monstrously […] Continue reading →

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Positivity is Key

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Sofia

Nuclear fusion is the process by which the Sun survives. During fusion, the Sun converts its mass into energy that powers the Sun itself. Fusion is unique to the Sun’s core because in order to occur high densities and temperatures are needed. In the core, there are high densities of positively charges hydrogen nuclei. In … Continue reading “Positivity is Key” Continue reading →

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A Natural Lightshow

Posted on March 14, 2016 by lindseynestor

When I think about light shows, I think about Disney World. Every night in the Magic Kingdom that have a “lightshow spectacular” full of elaborate parade floats decked out in incredible light schemes set to music. The show is pretty cool, but there’s one even cooler that our Earth puts on every night all on […] Continue reading →

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Coronal Mass Ejections and You

Posted on March 13, 2016 by astr2110geoffren

A coronal mass ejection (CME) is a massive outburst of Sun matter interweaved with magnetic field lines. This Sun matter basically consists of superheated particles accelerated at millions of miles per hour. This ejection isn’t self-contained, a lot of this stuff just goes shooting into space. This wouldn’t be so bad in of itself, except […] Continue reading →

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Space Bubbles AKA Quantum Foam

Posted on March 13, 2016 by astr2110geoffren

Spacetime is often described as a “fabric”, but there is one theory that would describe it as more like sea foam- made of a bunch of tiny bubbles. This is the quantum foam theory. The quantum foam theory basically came into existence to try and unite Einstein’s theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, something that […] Continue reading →

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