Category Archives: Space Travel

Holes and Wrinkles

Posted on April 28, 2013 by ibrahim2016

There is a lot of misconception about two of the more arcane forms of proposed space travel: Warp Drives and Worm Holes. They work on the same principles but function in wholly different ways. General Relativity explains that any mass or energy can bend space and time. Since there is energy everywhere space and time […] Continue reading →

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The Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 27, 2013 by fathomingthestars

The galaxy is a pretty big place.  With around 400 billion stars, it seems very likely that some of those stars have planets that can support life, that some of those planets have intelligent life, and maybe some of that intelligent life becomes space-faring.  Even if we say the chance of a star having a […] Continue reading →

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The Constant Search For Life

Posted on April 25, 2013 by indianwm

In this past week, three new planets have been discovered in Kepler’s habitable zone. These three planets are announced to potentially host life. This may or may not be true, but the thought of finding planets slightly larger than earth that are in the Goldilocks zone is exciting in itself. For me, this is what […] Continue reading →

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And It All Leads Up To The Now

Posted on April 21, 2013 by wherrysg

This semester we have studied everything from the creation of the universe to black holes to microscopic bacteria living on the bottom of the ocean floor. The range of topics covered in this class has helped round my view of the beginnings of time up until now and clarified many common misconceptions ranging from tides […] Continue reading →

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Solving a ‘Universal’ Delimma

Posted on April 21, 2013 by wherrysg

For those of you who are not familiar with the Fermi Paradox, it is “the apparent contradiction between the high probability extraterrestrial civilizations’ existence, and the lack of contact with such civilizations”.  There are many people out there convinced that life on other worlds doesn’t exist, but let me ask you this: what makes us […] Continue reading →

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Spacecraft of the Future

Posted on April 11, 2013 by JT McJunkins

Image Source After the end of the Space Shuttle program, many alternative spacecraft designs have begun to surface. Most of these designs are spaceplanes, much like the Space Shuttle, which means that they can glide through Earth’s atmosphere and… Continue reading →

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A Breakthrough in Space Travel

Posted on April 10, 2013 by AlanL

There is currently a project underway which aims to send astronauts in a fusion powered spacecraft to Mars and cutting the travel time to just 30 days round trip. Using existing rocket fuels it would take at least 4 years to travel the same round trip and would cost more than $12 billion. Using this […] Continue reading →

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The toughest animal on the planet

Posted on April 9, 2013 by fathomingthestars

Most creatures require a specific set of conditions to survive: a certain amount of oxygen, temperature, pressure, food, etc.  However, some animals can live in conditions so extreme they kill almost everything else.  These animals are called, fittingly, extremophiles.  One extremophile is the tardigrade, more commonly called water bears or moss piglets. In general, tardigrades […] Continue reading →

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Final Maven Instrument for Mars

Posted on April 8, 2013 by indianwm

The instrument above will be fitted on Mars Atmosphere and Volotile and Evolution spacecraft, or MAVEN. This instrument is a spectrometer for neutral gas and ion mass which will test the upper atmosphere of Mars. This instrument is important so we can understand the changes that have occurred within the upper atmosphere and analyze the […] Continue reading →

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A Black Hole’s Diet

Posted on April 7, 2013 by wherrysg

Source Incredible! While studying a distant galaxy, astronomers noticed a bright flare of X-rays coming from another galaxy that happened to be in their field of view. Upon closer look, they discovered that it was actually a black hole ‘eating up’ what they believe to be either an extremely large planet or a smaller brown […] Continue reading →

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