Category Archives: Terrestrials

includes Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars

Blog #3 Formation of the Solar System

Posted on March 6, 2023 by reidwalker87

The formation of the Solar System is truly a testament to our good fortune of life being possible on a planet located in the “Goldilocks Zone” near the Sun. The initial conditions allowed for not only Earth to be composed of rocky elements such as carbon but for the Earth to be protected from flying […] Continue reading →

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Earth and Us

Posted on March 5, 2023 by cuia2

I’ve always wondered how rare it is for Earth to exist and support life on it, and now I know that out of the billions of solar systems, Earth is the only planet we know of to support life on it currently. Earth had to be at just the right distance from the Sun for […] Continue reading →

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Olympus Mons

Posted on March 5, 2023 by andrewccascio

Currently the largest known volcano in the Solar System, Olympus Mons stands at a remarkable 25 km high, which is almost 3 times the height of Mount Everest, and is wide as Arizona. Compared to the largest active volcano on Earth, Mauna Loa, Olympus Mons is 100 times larger in volume, a seemingly odd feat […] Continue reading →

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Comparing the Atmospheres of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars

Posted on February 27, 2023 by Melanie Marszal

We may not think much about the presence of Earth’s atmosphere in our day-to-day lives, but it has an immense impact on us. Earth’s atmosphere contains the oxygen we need to breathe, protects us from many of the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays, helps stabilize the Earth’s temperature, and is responsible for weather patterns. If […] Continue reading →

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Identifying Jupiter and Mars

Posted on January 21, 2023 by Europa

Last night, I was looking up at the night sky while walking to dinner. I noticed a few constellations, as well as two brighter points of light that I was pretty sure were Mars and Jupiter. Normally, I can identify them, but for some reason Mars didn’t look as red to me as it normally […] Continue reading →

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What I’ve learned

Posted on May 4, 2022 by joubertklopper

Walking into astronomy class in late January, I was not even sure if I would be able to name the eight planets in our solar system. It is safe to say that I’ve learned a lot. I think the most important thing I learned is how big our universe really is and how everything explains […] Continue reading →

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Humanity’s Long-Term Future

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Jack Walton

For my third blog post, I wanted to research the future of Humanity. In about 5 billion years the Sun will run out of Hydrogen to fuse in the core, causing the sun to increase in size and become a Red Giant. It will get so large that it will swallow up Mercury, Venus, and […] Continue reading →

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Making our Earth

Posted on March 21, 2022 by gcomartin

New findings by the AKARI space telescope, coupled with surface modeling at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology present new evidence that the asteroid matter which composes Earth was located much further out in the solar system than initially thought. Their study involved computer modeling to develop reflective spectra of hypothetical […] Continue reading →

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Blog Post 3 Creation and Composition of the Solar System

Posted on March 21, 2022 by isaachuggins

The creation of our planet, the Earth, was achieved by the forces of gravity over millions of years, melding together different rocks into a sphere. This process, known as accretion, let the Earth grow into the size it is today, with the help of Thea, a large planet that turned into our moon. These rocks […] Continue reading →

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The Different Atmospheres in our Solar System

Posted on March 21, 2022 by jordanekstein

An atmosphere consists of the gases surrounding a planet. Atmospheres are created by volcanism (outgassing of volcanoes involves eruptions that take gasses from the earth’s interior and put them into the atmosphere), evaporation (of compounds such as water), and life (outgassing of carbon dioxide and oxygen). Life is an interesting component of an atmosphere as […] Continue reading →

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