Category Archives: Stars

Are we at the center of the Universe?

Posted on January 26, 2016 by podolakvandysolarsystem

It’s not surprising that at first, humans believed in a geocentric universe. When you look up at the night sky while standing on earth, it appears as though the sun, moon, and stars are moving around the earth. Now of course we know that this effect is actually due to the rotation of the earth […] Continue reading →

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Are we at the center of the Universe?

Posted on January 26, 2016 by podolakvandysolarsystem

It’s not surprising that at first, humans believed in a geocentric universe. When you look up at the night sky while standing on earth, it appears as though the sun, moon, and stars are moving around the earth. Now of course we know that this effect is actually due to the rotation of the earth […] Continue reading →

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Stargazing: There’s an App for That!

Posted on January 26, 2016 by samihahplanet

Source: Google Play Ever look up at the sky and wonder what that one bright star is called? Well there’s an app for that! Google Sky Map allows the user to hold their phone up to the sky, day or night, and scan the area for constellations, planets, and more. It has features similar to those […] Continue reading →

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Your Zodiac Sign is Wrong: 3 Misconceptions You Have About the Night-Sky

Posted on January 26, 2016 by harperastronomyblog

We all get it. You’re a Capricorn or a Taurus or a Sagittarius or a(n) [any other zodiac constellation]. You’ve read all of your horoscopes, and they fit your personality soooo well. “This is so me,” you might yell to your friends, completely disregarding the fact that they don’t care which vague internet prediction you identify with. […] Continue reading →

Posted in Aliens, Class, Dwarf Planets, Exoplanets, Galaxies, General, Historical, Instruments, Jovians, Light, Moons, Observables, Outreach, Physics, Planet Rings, Public Policy, Science, Small SS Objects, SolarSystem, Space Travel, Stars, Sun, Terrestrials, Universe | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Your Zodiac Sign is Wrong: 3 Misconceptions You Have About the Night-Sky

One Long Trip

Posted on January 25, 2016 by chasejaeger

When we look up at the sky during the night, it can feel comforting that instead of being surrounded by darkness, we see the bright twinkles of stars all around us. Though this might make us feel like we are not simply on a rocky planet hurtling through space far from everything else, this is not […] Continue reading →

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Name That Constellation

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Chloe

The Night Sky, showing the Milky Way, at La Silla Observatory in Chile. Source: Wikimedia Commons.   The constellations visible from the Western Hemisphere differ from those visible from the Southern Hemisphere. In English, we typically use names derived from Greek and Roman mythology for the constellations, referring to constellations such as Orion and Pleiades […] Continue reading →

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Constellations of the East

Posted on January 23, 2016 by jasperluastronomy

When we were looking at star maps inside of Stellarium during class, I couldn’t help but think about how arbitrary all of the constellations seemed. If I didn’t know what shape to look for, I don’t think I would ever have found the same patterns in the sky. I decided to study the Chinese constellation system […] Continue reading →

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Stellar classification

Posted on April 28, 2015 by newbeelity

The stellar classification classifies stars based on their spectral characteristics. When passing through a prism, light from a star will be split into a spectrum displaying rainbow of colors interspersed with absorption lines. The strength of each line indicates the abundance of a specific ion. The abundance of different ions varies with the temperature of… Continue reading →

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Planet Discovered with Four Parent Stars

Posted on April 6, 2015 by conorastr201

Binary star systems, like the one featured in the Tatooine system of Star Wars are common in the universe with half of all systems being comprised that way. Ternary system, or systems with three stars, are more rare, and even more rare are quaternion systems. Planets within these four star systems are also rare, so much so […] Continue reading →

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The Goldilocks Zone: Not as elusive as previously thought?

Posted on March 26, 2015 by jclyncmp

New research from the Australian National University and the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen has calculated that billions of the milky Way star’s have one to three planets in the habitable zone (or nicknamed: “The Goldilocks Zone” because…

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