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Category Archives: Physics
The Event Horizon Telescope
We’ve spent the semester so far studying the greatest discoveries and breakthroughs in the history of astronomy, from as long ago as Copernicus to as recent as the New Horizons flyby of Pluto. Even more recently, however, an astronomical breakthrough was made that will surely be the subject of textbook pages and lecture slides in […] Continue reading
Posted in Light, Physics, Universe
Tagged astro2110, Black Holes, blog6, telescopes
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The Cosmic Microwave Background
One of the pillars that the Big Bang Theory Model rests on is the existence and characteristics of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The CMB is an observed cosmic glow of radiation seen everywhere, filling the universe like a sea. Roughly 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe cooled enough (~3,000K) for free-roaming electrons […] Continue reading
Interferometry: Viewing the Minute
Saying the universe is incomprehensibly massive, so much so only the brightest and closest objects and phenomena are visible to the naked eye. Throughout history people have had work arounds, be it using devices to mark inclination of stars to focusing light through telescopes to make the faintest bodies visible. One of the most interesting […] Continue reading
Posted in Class, Historical, Physics
Tagged astro2110, blog6, gravitationalwaves, LIGO
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Ceres, the Celebrity of the Asteroid Belt
Despite comprising almost a third of the asteroid belt’s total mass, Ceres is often left out of dwarf planet discussions. However, Ceres is actually pretty unique and could potentially support life in the future. Because of its relative closeness compared to the likes of Pluto, it was the first dwarf planet to be visited by […] Continue reading
Posted in Dwarf Planets, Physics
Tagged astro2110, blog5, Ceres, dwarfplanet
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Nemesis: The Ultimate Party (And Ort Cloud) Crasher
(Hypothetical Rendition of Nemesis – https://images.app.goo.gl/214dFoRtpLU4LSW59) There is a theory concerning the orbit of celestial bodies which has been proposed that would explain the extinction of the dinosaurs. The theory rests on the idea that our sun is part of an astronomical dynamic called a binary system. A binary system resembles the mechanics of satellite […] Continue reading
Strange Stars (Literally)
Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of massive stars of 10-25 solar masses. They are formed when these supergiant stars collapse under their own gravity and undergo a supernova explosion, which compresses the star’s core to the extremely high density of atomic nuclei. In fact, they are called neutron stars because the extreme forces within […] Continue reading
Ocean Worlds of Supercritical Fluid
In class, we learned about various categories of exoplanets, including Super-Earths, terrestrials, ice giants, gas giants, and hot Jupiters. One other category that was mentioned was “water worlds,” an ill-defined and not entirely proven category of planets. This category would describe planets that are on the border between terrestrials and ice giants, or terrestrial worlds […] Continue reading
Posted in Class, Exoplanets, Physics
Tagged astro2110, blog5
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Astronaut Bone Density
(X-Rays of astronauts in space for extended periods of time: https://images.app.goo.gl/yfa81MRNQ1S5k5UL7) When I was in 6th grade, I participated in a summer engineering competition called Zero Robotics through MIT. The objective was to create a code that would allow for droids aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to take pictures of research targets the most […] Continue reading
The Unimaginable Nature of Space-Time
Most depictions of the space-time continuum display it as a two-dimensional plane in three-dimensional space. In such a model, objects make indents in the plane based on their gravity, with more massive objects having larger indents. This model is helpful to display how gravity works, but it doesn’t capture the whole picture. The planar model […] Continue reading
Time Dilation and the Theory of Relativity
With our totally unrestricted guidelines on Blog 4, I would like to make a bit of a deviation from the content of our course and discuss time dilation and the theory of relativity! When I first learned about time dilation, which refers to the difference in elapsed time as measured by different clocks due to […] Continue reading