Category Archives: Observables

things we can see from Earth using our eyeballs or telescopes

Stonehenge: Change the How!

Posted on February 15, 2016 by astrologankeller

We all know Stonehenge as a Wonder of the World, in which there are multiple sets of 3 massive rocks stacked together. The major question revolving around Stonehenge (to the lay person) is how they got the rocks up there, since the technology of the time would have made this incredibly difficult. While this is […] Continue reading →

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GRAVITATIONAL WAVES!!!!

Posted on February 15, 2016 by harperastronomyblog

According to the this video by the New York Times, Scientists working at LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) have made a monumental discovery that reinforces Albert Einstein’s theory of special relatively put forth almost a hundred years ago. Einstein predicted gravitational waves when he announced his theory, but until LIGO’s announcement on Thursday, no […] Continue reading →

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Hearing the Universe

Posted on February 15, 2016 by alecsolarsystem

One of the most groundbreaking theories in astronomy has just been proven with the announcement last week that gravitational waves have been detected. Einstein had predicted these waves in 1916 in his theory of general relativity, and they were only just found today using lasers, which Einstein also laid the foundation for one year later in 1917. These […] Continue reading →

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Planet IX

Posted on February 15, 2016 by lawlorsolarsystem

I have been fascinated by the possibility of a new ninth planet ever since I heard about it, so I thought I would use this blog to share some information on it. First, the discovery of it came, in many ways, from Pluto itself. Once astronomers discovered that there were other objects like Pluto (Kuiper […] Continue reading →

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Stonehenge

Posted on February 15, 2016 by lawlorsolarsystem

The layout of Stonehenge has confounded historians and archaeologists for years, and they still do not entirely know why it is there. But historians have theorized that at least part of the layout has to do with astronomy. One of the stones, called the Heel Stone, is lined up exactly with the Sun on the […] Continue reading →

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Celestial NASCAR: Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion

Posted on February 15, 2016 by d51blog

Before 1609, the scientific consensus in Europe was that the planets orbited the Earth in perfect circles; even dissenting views such as Copernican heliocentricism relied upon perfect circles to guide objects around the Sun. Johannes Kepler, however, motivated by minute errors in planetary distances discovered when attempting to construct Copernicus’ model, revolutionized astronomy with his laws of […] Continue reading →

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The Sun and the Missing Neutrinos

Posted on February 13, 2016 by solarsystemjoe

First of all, what is a neutrino?  It’s an elementary particle, like an electron or a photon, but it hardly interacts with matter.  In fact, billions of neutrinos pass through you every second, but you don’t feel them.  This characteristic makes them hard to detect.  It’s no wonder that, in recent history, scientists thought some […] Continue reading →

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Newgrange, Archeoastronomy Before Stonehenge

Posted on February 13, 2016 by solarsystemjoe

Although Stonehenge is the most famous ancient astronomy site in Europe, it isn’t the oldest.  While Stonehenge was built around 3000 BCE, Newgrange, a tomb in Country Meath, Ireland, was built around  3200 BCE. At first glance, this tomb doesn’t seem to have much to do with astronomy; there is no telescope, nor is there a spire to […] Continue reading →

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The Great American (solar) Eclipse

Posted on January 26, 2016 by segalastronomyblog

There are two different types of eclipses; lunar eclipses and solar eclipses. I want to talk today about a particular solar eclipse coming our way. The Great American Eclipse. But I regress. Solar eclipses and lunar eclipses differ in a very important way; a lunar eclipse is when Earth lies directly between the sun and […] Continue reading →

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Eclipses Throughout History

Posted on January 26, 2016 by astr2110geoffren

Eclipse science! You’re just mowing grass one day and the sun disappears. You look up and see an eclipse. Today, people would just brush it off for the most part. There would be some oohs and ahhs, but most people would just treat it like any other day and probably forget about the occurrence a […] Continue reading →

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