Category Archives: Space Travel

Making the Jump to Light Speed

Chapter 1 of Astronomy: The Solar System served as a HUGE (seriously though) reminder as to how small and insignificant we are, and how very very very infinitesimally small the corner of the universe we’ve explored actually is. I’m a big Star Wars fan, and looking at that world from the perspective of astronomy class, […] Continue reading

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Blog #1

For my first blog, I will write about the size and scale of the universe and what that might mean from a human and space travel perspective. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is about 100,000 light years across. The nearest major galaxy, Andromeda, is 2.5 million light years away. The limit of direct space exploration for […] Continue reading

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The size of the universe and what that means for space travel

If there is one thing that I have learned so far in the Solar System, it’s that the universe is really big. Just for light to travel from one end of the Milky Way galaxy to the other takes 100,000 light years, and this distance is short compared to the universe itself! Additionally, since light […] Continue reading

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“Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here.”

One of my favorite quotes from my one of my favorite movies, Interstellar, perfectly sums up my feelings towards human progression into space. Ever since I was first asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I knew … Continue reading Continue reading

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Is Anybody Out There?

While eating lunch with some colleagues in 1950, Enrico Fermi made an innocent yet profound comment about life in the universe. As a well-known physicist, Fermi knew that the universe was old enough to possibly have other life present, especially within the Milky Way. If this was the case, there was an obvious question –… Continue reading Is Anybody Out There? Continue reading

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Faster-than-light Travel

Many different propulsion methods have been proposed for interstellar travel. One of the most intriguing is hypothetical faster-than-light travel. Most sci-fi movies contain this in some form, whether it be the Millennium Falcon traveling through hyperspace or the Endurance traveling through a wormhole in Interstellar. A few different methods have been postulated for faster-than-light travel. […] Continue reading

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Voyager 2

Today Voyager 1 was on Earth just 38 years and now it’s more than 130 AU away. It is venturing into deep space and exploring areas of the Universe that we have never seen before. On September 12, 2013, the spacecraft left the Solar System. The spacecraft is unique and fascinating in many ways. We […] Continue reading

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Doctor Who is not COMPLETELY fictional

Image from wikipedia.com This article covers arguably one of my favorite topics to swoon over-Doctor Who.  I will be completely honest in saying that my intense interest in studying the solar system and beyond came pretty much single-handedly from watching Doctor Who (and maybe a teensy bit by my mom making me watch old Star […] Continue reading

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Blog Post #10: 100 Year Starship

After learning about all of these thoughts and ideas about interstellar travel and the widespread interest in human exploration to …

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Studying the Effects of Space Travel on the Human Body

NASA is conducting an experiment to determine the effects of living in space on the human body. Such studies have been done before, but this one is unprecedented in the length of time the subject will spend in space (a full 365 days) and in that the participants are identical twins. One astronaut named Scott […] Continue reading

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