Category Archives: Universe

WFIRST: The Newest Vanguard of the Mission to Understand Dark Energy

At some point this decade, a new space observatory will be launched into orbit; one unlike any that we have seen before with extraordinary equipment and capabilities. WFIRST, the Wide-Field InfraRed Survey Telescope, could potentially revolutionize what astronomers know about our universe and how it behaves by focusing on three major categories: dark energy, exoplanetContinue reading “WFIRST: The Newest Vanguard of the Mission to Understand Dark Energy” Continue reading

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The History of Astronomy

Astronomy, the scientific study of the universe and of the objects that exist naturally in space, is one of the oldest natural sciences to reach a high level of sophistication. The history of this science has impressive continuity and duration, as observed changes would take thousands, millions, and even billions of years. In 3000 BC,Continue reading “The History of Astronomy” Continue reading

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Light: It’s More than We Think

Flip a switch. Turn a knob. Push a button. Look in the sky in the day or at night. Each of these actions will allow you to see light, and most people see light as nothing more than an illuminator. Its purpose in the field of astronomy is much more than illuminating the Universe forContinue reading “Light: It’s More than We Think” Continue reading

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The Universe is Incomprehensibly Large

Many people have talked about the feeling of walking outside, looking up at the night sky, and feeling small. You look out into the cosmos, see seemingly countless stars, and think that everything you do on earth is just immeasurably small. Despite many people feeling that way, few truly understand the real scope of theContinue reading “The Universe is Incomprehensibly Large” Continue reading

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Zooming Out

One of the coolest videos I have ever seen is the Powers of Ten video. In 1977 Charles and Ray Eames—the inventors of the Eames Office, a famous furniture company—in collaboration with IBM, created a video beginning in Chicago and gradually zooming out, transporting the viewer to the outer edges of the universe. Every tenContinue reading “Zooming Out” Continue reading

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Blog #1: The Scale of the Universe

Something that fascinates me is the idea of scale of our universe. In particular, “scale” relative to a more traditional size/distance scale that we use more often. The metric scale, whose utility to humans generally ranges from millimeters to kilometers (measurements that we are easily able to estimate and compare), represents an indescribably minuscule spectrumContinue reading “Blog #1: The Scale of the Universe” Continue reading

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How the Universe?

The universe is much, much, much bigger than you may think it is. I personally find it inconceivable – my finite brain does not register infinity. The observable universe, as we know it today, is 14 billion years old – this means that we can see 14 billion light-years into the universe. Within this universeContinue reading “How the Universe?” Continue reading

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Wormhole Theory

Reading about the vast size of the universe, I started exploring the possibility of travelling through the it. One popular theory on the structure of space-time is a wormhole. It postulates a theoretical passage through space-time that could create a shortcut to a different spot in the universe. So far, we’ve thought about travelling inContinue reading “Wormhole Theory” Continue reading

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The Cosmic Calendar

The Cosmic Calendar is created by shrinking the life span of the entire universe down into the length of the Gregorian Calendar. In this time, a human life is less than a second long and modern humans have been around for about two minutes (The Cosmic Perspective). When I think about this, it is almostContinue reading “The Cosmic Calendar” Continue reading

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How Do We Understand the Size of Our Universe?

It is hard for us to truly fathom the sheer size of our universe, this is clear- the distances involved are simply too big to comprehend with just the human mind. But we have begun to understand the nature of this size, and order the magnitudes of the universe in ways we can understand. TheContinue reading “How Do We Understand the Size of Our Universe?” Continue reading

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