Category Archives: Sun

Nuclear Fusion in the Sun

Posted on March 13, 2016 by danielicopeland

At the core of the Sun, and every other Sun like star, a process called fusion takes place. Fusion describes a process where light elements, such as hydrogen, get fused together to form heavier elements, like helium. Fusion happens due to the intense pressure of gravity acting on the suns mass. A byproduct of this […] Continue reading →

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The Sun’s Absorption Spectrum

Posted on February 16, 2016 by annamcc9

Absorption spectra occur when a hot solid or liquid or very dense gas give off a continuous spectrum, with all colors, and then that continuous light moves through a thin gas that is cooler than the source of the continuous light. This thin gas absorbs some of the light being given off by the source […] Continue reading →

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Lunar and Solar Tides

Posted on February 16, 2016 by annamcc9

Tides are a fascinating effect of the Moon and Sun’s gravitational forces acting on the Earth. They are a visible sign of how distance effects the strength of a gravitational force. Because the Sun is so large, it has the greatest gravitational force acting on the Earth. However, because it is so far away, the […] 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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It’s kind of in the name

Posted on January 27, 2016 by philhawkins221

captain’s blog, Stardate 69536.8 you, potentially: “wait Phil, isn’t the Stardate of blog post 2 is pretty close to the Stardate of blog post 1?” me: “Shhhhhhhhh.” This last week we looked deeply into the movement of the sun throughout the year. Without discussing it, we were inherently learning about solstices and equinoxes, a topic […] Continue reading →

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The Zodiac Signs

Posted on January 26, 2016 by imanig625

Image link The zodiac signs surround a lot of peoples’ daily lives, in that most people look to a horoscope to direct their lives. The fact that the position of the stars at a certain time can tell so much about a person’s individual personality is absurd, yet we attribute personality traits to the constellations.… 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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Fuller-Mooning in the Winter

Posted on January 26, 2016 by nickwtheastronomer

Whoa there. Before you flag this post as inappropriate, answer this question. Was this photo taken at noon or at midnight? If you answered midnight, congratulations! And surprisingly enough, this stunning photo of a full moon could only have been photographed in the winter. But why winter? Don’t we get full moons year-round? This is […] Continue reading →

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Mayans Predicted the 1991 Solar Eclipse

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Alex Pratte

Okay so this picture may look like just a bunch of doodles on a piece of clay, but it actually is hieroglyphs from four ancient Mayan codices that predict with surprising accuracy the 1991 Solar Eclipse. The Mayan astronomers were able to predict within a day, the time of the 1991 solar eclipse. Keep in […] Continue reading →

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The Speed of Light

Posted on January 26, 2016 by podolakvandysolarsystem

The speed of light is very, very fast, almost incomprehensibly fast. It is unusual to think that whenever we see an object, light is bouncing off that object and hitting our eye. We perceive this to be instantaneous, but it actually takes some infinitesimal amount of time for light to travel from nearby objects to […] Continue reading →

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