What’s in Charge of Earth’s Long-Term Climate Change?

Posted on March 25, 2021 by solarcecily

Climate change has been worsening, so much so that when news outlets report on it the term sounds like just another buzzword. Current projections of the United States’ future coastlines don’t look at all forgiving. Where did this catastrophe start? Well, to answer that question we have to examine four key factors: solar brightening, changes in axis tilt, changes in reflectivity, and changes in greenhouse gas abundance. This last one probably sounds the most familiar, as it’s the factor that humans can and have had a direct impact on.

Interactive map of coastal flooding impacts from sea level rise | American Geosciences Institute
Coastline projections for the United States. Credit: American Geosciences Institute

What is solar brightening? Over time, the average amount of solar energy reaching Earth has been increasing, because the Sun is getting brighter over time. This, as one might expect, can cause climates to warm over time as well.

What do changes in axis tilt have to do with climate change? As the Earth spins like a metaphorical top, it’s pulled a little bit by other objects in space, like moons, planets, and the Sun itself. This can cause the axis tilt to grow either less or more extreme, which in turn causes the seasons to be less or more extreme.

What do changes in reflectivity refer to? This refers to the amount of light being absorbed or reflected by the atmosphere. The more reflective a planet is, the less heat it’s trapping and insulating itself with, thus leading to planet cooling. The opposite is true for the less reflective a planet is.

Finally, greenhouse gases. They are crucial to the greenhouse effect, which insulates the planet from the frigid temperatures of space. However, too much of anything is still too much, and with an overabundance of greenhouse gases, the planet would warm, causing water to vaporize and add more gases to the atmosphere, and atmospheric pressures would rise.

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All About Neptune!

Posted on March 23, 2021 by bellagoodnight

Neptune has always been my favorite planet. I don’t know if it’s its pretty blue color, its name, or the fact that I did a project on it in elementary school that drew me towards it, but I’ve always loved Neptune.

Neptune is the 8th planet from the Sun in our Solar System and named for the Roman God of the sea. It is the most dense of the Jovian planets but has the smallest diameter out of them. One of the most interesting parts about Neptune is the weather there. It has extremely fast wind – the fastest in the Solar System – reaching up to about 1,500 mph. One feature often present on Neptune is called the “Great Dark Spot,” which is a fast moving storm visible with a darker hue that was big enough to fit Earth! It was moving westward across the planet until it seemed to disappear a few years later. However, observations have shown that multiple different “Great Dark Spots” have shown up and faded over time, indicating Neptune’s susceptibility to windy, fast-moving storms. Neptune is very far away from the Sun (about 30 times as far as Earth) and has a long orbit of around 165 Earth years. One more fun fact about this planet is that, like Saturn, it actually has rings too! Unlike Saturn’s though, they are inconsistent and unstable, disappearing in a relatively short period of time.

I hope these facts have taught you a little bit more about Neptune and why it is my favorite planet!

Neptune picture

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The Carrington Event

Posted on March 23, 2021 by bellagoodnight

When Dr. G first mentioned the Carrington Event in class, I was equally interested and terrified. The idea that a solar coronal mass ejection could happen today and wreak havoc on electrical grids leading to blackouts and an inability to communicate has now been added to my list of fears (much in the same vein as the Supervolcano under Yellowstone). Despite this scary idea, the story of the Carrington Event is intensely interesting.

Back in 1859, a man named Richard Carrington observed dark sun spots with bright, white patches of light inside them. These white patches of light were actually due to a geomagnetic storm that had a solar coronal mass ejection that hit Earth’s magnetosphere. A few hours after his observation, the effects of the gigantic solar flares were felt on Earth. During this time, the telegraph system was hugely important for transmitting news and information, but this geomagnetic storm made this impossible. The currents flowing through the telegraph wires became too powerful and was even described as fire going through the circuits. Leaving people unable to send messages. Another effect of the Carrington Event was the presence of “Northern Lights,” or Auroras, in unusual places including Australia and the southern U.S. Overall, the Carrington Event was the largest solar storm from the last 500 years and had crazy effects that caused confusion (and cost money) all over the world.

Solar flare from 2012

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Blog 4—Plato’s cosmology

Posted on March 23, 2021 by zvrec

In this blog, I would like to introduce the cosmology of the ancient Athenian philosopher Plato. His cosmology was the first systemic and complete cosmology in the history. He and his most famous student Aristotle both hold the geocentric view of the universe, and their perspectives of the universe were influential in the following thousands of years, although many disagreements exist between their theories.


Plato’s portrait

In Plato’s philosophy, the perfect things only exist in the ideal realm, but not in the reality. The material world is only a defective copy of the ideal world. This concept also applies to his view of our universe. He believes that the universe we live in was created by an artificer named Demiurge, a god who is completely “good” and “fair.” He created the world based on his knowledge about the ideal form of the universe. Unlike our modern understanding of atoms, Plato states that the universe is made up of only four pre-existing basic elements: fire, earth, water, and air. He denies the possibility of multiverse, because he considers the god demiurge used up all the basic elements to create the world, so nothing was available out there for another universe.


Plato’s model of the universe

In Plato’s model of our solar system, Earth is located at the center. The Sun and all other planets orbit Earth in the complete circular motion. In fact, many ancient philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, worship circle. They regard it as a representation of perfectness. However, an important part in Plato’s cosmology is similar to our modern understanding of the universe: humans are not central. Plato thinks that all the celestial bodies created by demiurge are also eternal gods. Human beings were not created by demiurge directly, but by these celestial bodies in the heaven. The soul of humans was diluted in the creation process. As a result, we are not immortal in the beginning. Nevertheless, Plato still believes that humans are connected to divinity. He says that if humans live proper life to conquer their passions and physical pleasures, they are said to be successfully implementing rational thoughts. As a reward, they will ascend to heaven after they die, and their soul will become eternal just as stars and planets in the universe.

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An Eclipse’s Blinding Beauty

Posted on March 23, 2021 by yvan247
Solar eclipse - Wikipedia
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We’ve all been told when we were children to NEVER stare directly into sun. Whether it be our parents, teachers, or someone on tv, right before we were sent out to get our daily exercise, we were made sure to know to avoid making eye contact with that big, bright, bulb in the sky.

But what about when it’s covered? When I first learned about solar eclipses in Mrs. Montano’s 3rd grade science class, being the cunning 10 year old i was, I knew that I had found a loophole that allowed me to stick it to the the adults—you sure can stare directly at the sun! It just has to be during an eclipse. Or so I thought… well technically I wasn’t wrong. Let me explain.

First we must understand that not all solar eclipses are the same. There are 3 main types of solar eclipses: total, annular, and partial. What differentiates the three are the kinds of shadow the moon places on the earth depending on the moon, earth, and sun alignment and distance.

I thought that since the harm from looking directly into the sun was because the powerful sun rays was too strong for your eyes to handle, some “shade” from the moon would cause some sort of buffer that would make it perfectly safe. WRONG… because even though the sun will be blocked, it doesn’t eliminate the solar radiation from the parts that aren’t covered. On top of that, our eyes uses lenses to see, and much like a magnifying glass they are able to focus the remaining rays of light cause damage. What type of damage you ask? Oh just a little something called solar retinopathy. This “eclipse blindness” has no treatment and can lead to blind spots, decrease in vision clarity, and forms of color blindness.

But like I mentioned earlier, solar eclipses are not created equally, and this is where I might have found my loophole. Without a doubt, there is absolutely no time during an annular or partial solar eclipse that you should be looking at the sun without protection. With that being said, during a total eclipses something special happens. For about a 2 minute period during the span of total eclipse at a very specific location on earth, the moon is positioned so that its shadow blocks the entire disk of the sun.

Illustration image
source

An umbra is the type of shadow that the moon can only produce during a total solar eclipse, and as the picture shows, the umbra only covers a fraction of the earth’s surface area. And for those 2 minutes, those lucky enough to be where that tiny dot will be located, although still risky, will be able to star directly at the sun without protection. But at that point, are you really starring at the sun?

If you’re like me and missed the first time a total eclipse was visible from the United State back on August 21, 2017 since 1979, no worries, we can relive that moment together without having to worry about going blind.

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Reaching Absolute Zero

Posted on March 23, 2021 by yvan247
What Is Absolute Zero in Science?

Our discussion towards the infamous “coldest temperature possible” dates back to the 1700s when French physicist Guillaume Amontons hypothesized that since temperature is the measure of heat in a system, then there must be a lowest possible temperature. But it took 200 years for any significant progress towards reaching that coldest point to begin. After multiple failed attempts and with the help of a high-powered refrigerator type cooling lab, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was successfully able to liquify helium. This research resulted in reaching a temperature only 6 kelvins above absolute zero and won him a Nobel Price in 1913.

Now to better understand the fascination with potential of reaching absolute zero, we must start with origins of the laws of thermodynamics. First proposed by German chemist Walther Nernst, the first law of thermodynamics, also known as the law of conservation of energy, simply put, states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can only change form within a closed system. The second law is a little more convoluted. Energy is basically a change in a system or a system’s ability to do what we call work (i.e making things move). With all transfers of energy, “random fluctuations” that we call heat gets created. Because of this randomness when transferring energy referred to as “entropy”, the second law states that all processes increase the overall entropy in the universe. In 1912, Nernst proposed a final law of thermodynamics that built upon the previous two; reaching absolute zero is physically impossible. With the likes of Albert Einstein and Max Plank contesting the validity of the third law, it has been a topic of debate for over a century. Until now.

In 2017, Luis Masanes from University College London decided to put and end to the age old debate telling IFlScience that “We show that you can’t actually cool a system to absolute zero with a finite amount of resources and we went a step further.” So this is what he and his team did. They essential created a relationship between the lowest possible temperature (0 Kelvin) and time resulting in what they call the “speed of cooling.” They believed that they could calculate how long it would take for a system to be cooled to its theoretical limit because of the steps required to remove heat. Think of cooling like “shoveling” out heat to place it in the environment. The amount of “steps” it takes to the cool the system depends on the amount of initial heat and the size of the surrounding “reservoir” the heat can be placed in. Using computational algorithms and mathematical techniques from quantum information theory, they found that absolute zero can only be reached with both infinite steps and an infinite reservoir—two conditions that are not physically possible now or in the foreseeable future.

Just because reaching absolute zero is a lost cause does not mean we can’t get really, really, and I mean really close. Ill leave with a video explaining NASA’s Cold Atom Lab which is capable of hitting temperature a billionth of a degree above absolute zero!

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Elon Musk and Mars

Posted on March 23, 2021 by wslopes
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Anyone who has been on Twitter, or the internet, for the matter, in recent years is sure to have come across the antics of Elon Musk. Whether it be because of his marrying of hyperpop/ electric grunge artist Grimes, his being a billionaire, Azealia Banks breaking in and hiding in his mansion for several days, his son’s name being X Æ A-12, or, most relevant to this blog post, his plans to colonize Mars by 2050, you are sure to have heard of him (there is so much more on top of this too). By 2026, he plans on having put the first human on Mars with his SpaceX company. While the idea of colonizing Mars seems super cool and cutting edge, there are many things that make this venture seem nowhere near possible anytime soon. Mainly, it is the lack of an atmosphere. Musk has proposed many ideas that seem outlandish today, but I wouldn’t underestimate the ability of someone as rich and smart as him. Some of these ideas include redirecting small asteroids towards Mars, setting off of nuclear bombs above the ice caps to melt them, living in a glass dome, etc. He does address potential pitfalls, however, stating that the city shouldn’t be inhabited until it is fully sustainable and can survive independent of the Earth. Many other scientists highlight the potential dangers of living on Mars, such as boiling blood or deteriorating muscles. While, again, the prospect of living on Mars sounds cool, until there is an atmosphere that is comparable to Earth’s, I’ll be just fine staying here.

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Space Travel

Posted on March 22, 2021 by 20harriganc

In 1961, Alan shepherd became the first american astronaut in space who was trained and sent to space by NASA. 2 years ago marked the 60th anniversary of NASA and their endeavors into space. During those years, they have sent over 350 people into space and the number will only keep going up. I think it is very interesting to see humans to attempt to conquer the unknown. Elon musk is a person who I enjoy keeping tabs with because he is always actively trying to reach space. His company SpaceX is fully devoted to launching and building rocket-ships. I would love to go to space, but I know it takes a lot of schooling and a lot of time. I admire all the courageous astronauts who explore space. I can’t wait to see what interesting things they find next. This video is a promotion showing what NASA has done so far. It’s very cool to watch.

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Fusion in Warfare

Posted on March 22, 2021 by wslopes
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The world of nuclear warheads and atomic bombs is one best left in the hypothetical. It is scary to think how we are all essentially alive at the will of those in possession of said nuclear weapons. While the prospect of their eventual use is frightening, the fact that we are able to create such profound technology is mind blowing. But just how do modern nuclear weapons work?

In WWII, the bombs the United States used on Japan worked by having a uranium neutron shot at other uranium atoms, reaching “critical mass” and allowing fission to occur, and then setting of a chain reaction of fission with the remaining uranium atoms, releasing unfathomable amounts of energy. This, however, is not how nuclear warheads work today. They mostly work by having explosives surrounding the “pit”, which is filled with uranium or plutonium, and compresses the uranium or plutonium inward. Once the pit reaches critical mass, more neutrons are added and a chain of fission reaction ensues. This is a lot more powerful than the older bombs, but not as powerful as thermonuclear bombs. Also known as fusion bombs, they use fission to fuse hydrogen isotopes together, making so much energy that the war head reaches temperatures in the same range as the Sun’s core. Fusion bombs are so much more powerful and can do serious damage. There are so many more new versions of fusion bombs that use different combinations of elements and engineering, but its safe to say that the advancements we have made are quite scary.

Though it is so cool that we have been able to harness the same energy that is uses in the Sun to create energy (fusion), it is very sad that we live in a world that this insane scientific advancement is stained by its purpose– mass murder. I hope we will see a day when these achievements in science can be looked at for what they are– feats of the human potential, but for right now they are symbols of an ever divided world, in the hands of those in power.

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Space Hotel! Who’s in?!

Posted on March 22, 2021 by adisonfields
World's first space hotel Voyager Station scheduled to open in 2027 | CNN Travel
Voyager Station

Recently, reports of a space hotel have been ~orbitting~ social media.  In early March, Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) released plans for the first luxury hotel in space, called the Voyager Station.  The OAC, comprised of NASAN veterans, is a space construction company which claims it will begin construction on this hotel in 2026.  According to CNN Travel, they expect to have the hotel functional and open to the public just one year later.  This futuristic hotel is already taking reservations, at a whopping 5 million dollars for just a three day stay.  Due to the fact that it will take a space shuttle to reach the hotel, tourists will need to undergo some basic training.  It will be Elon Musks SpaceX shuttles that are used for this transportation, but some of the wildest aspects of this hotel come from the experiences that will take place there.  The hotel will spin in order to create centrifugal force to stimulate gravity, about to the same levels as the moon.  Since there will be more weightlessness in the hotel than on earth, the Voyager Station will have recreational activities that use this low gravity to their advantage.  For example, there will be basketball games in which players will be able to jump up to six times as high as on earth.  Personally, I think this would be a blast.  In order to pay tribute to its space location, the hotel will offer foods that are traditionally eaten there, such as freeze-dried ice cream.  Obviously, it is an outrageously expensive trip, but if money were not a factor, let me know if you think you would go to the Voyager Station!  Maybe in the future this kind of travel will not be so exclusive.  This could be the first step toward widespread space travel, who knows!

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