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Category Archives: Light
Light: Wavelength, Frequency, and Energy
A prism splits white light into a spectrum of colors ranging from red to violet. These colors correspond to different wavelengths, frequencies, and energy levels. Light with a longer wavelength has a lower frequency and lower energy level, and light with a shorter wavelength has a higher frequency and higher energy level. Violet light has […] Continue reading
Blog Post 2 Bending of Light
Light is a weird thing. It is both a particle and a wave, yet it has no mass to it. This means it should be immune to certain laws of physics, such as gravity, since gravity requires two masses to generate a force. However, light does bend due to gravity. This is not the normal […] Continue reading
Light
The topic of light in regards to astronomy or any study of space is incredibly fascinating. In a vacuum, the speed of light travels around 300,000 km/sec and is known to be the fastest phenomenon in the entire universe. There’s so many interesting aspects that come out of studying light. One such example would be […] Continue reading
Discovering the Photoelectric Effect
I’ve always been taught that light is both a wave and a particle, and I’ve never faltered in believing it. However, I chose to challenge myself and question what I’ve always known to be true. Accordingly, I explored the origins of the photoelectric effect to understand how physicists arrived at their conclusions. In my research, […] Continue reading
The James Webb Space Telescope
As you may have heard in the news recently, the James Webb Space Telescope (or JWST) was launched into space on December 25, 2021. The JWST is meant to be the successor to the Hubble Telescope, as it detects light further into the infrared spectrum than the Hubble telescope, and so can see stars that […] Continue reading
The Cosmic Calendar
The Cosmic Calendar is a mechanism to help us understand the history of the universe relative to something we can comprehend more easily. This method puts the history of the universe into one calendar year proportionately. Through this it can help us understand in a more conceptual way how long, for example, humans have existed […] Continue reading
Blog 1: The Mystery of the Light-Year
People often confuse a light-year for a measure of time instead of a measure of distance. This is understandable since it has “year” in the name. A light-year is NOT a measure of time. The true definition of a light-year can be easily understood with a few simple facts and calculations. First, light travels at […] Continue reading
Posted in Class, Light, Space Travel
Tagged astro2110, blog1, light-year, misconception, Time
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The speed of light and what it means for the Earth-Sun system.
The speed of light is one of the most important laws (or principles) in our Universe. The speed of light determines what we see and when we see it, as well as providing a universal “speed-limit” for countless celestial objects that zoom throughout the universe. I find it illuminating to consider the speed of light […] Continue reading
Total Solar Eclipse
On August 21st, 2017, the citizens of Oregon to South Carolina got to see a total Solar Eclipse. Although there is a total solar eclipse approximately every 18 months visible somewhere on Earth, the odds of the eclipse’s path passing over head where you can see it is much lower. Many mathematicians and scientist have […] Continue reading
The Northern Lights
The northern lights are one of Earth’s beautiful sights that everyone wants to see. However, little people actually know how they occur. The northern lights, which are aurora, are caused by electrified gas from the Sun getting caught by Earth’s magnetic field which leads to the North and South poles. These particles from the sun […] Continue reading