Historical Astronomers in Context -Cameron Klein

Posted on January 31, 2024 by Cameron Klein
Britanicca

The astronomer that I have selected to look into is Tycho Brahe. Tycho Brahe was born on December 14th, 1546 and died on October 24th, 1601. Tycho Brahe was known as the best naked-eye observer of all time. During his childhood in Denmark, Brahe became entranced with the thought of astronomy when he witnessed a solar eclipse take place exactly at its projected time. In order to be able to predict eclipses for himself, he built an observatory on a private island given to him by the King of Denmark. He built a semicircle that he mounted to the wall in order to be able to determine the positions of planets and stars in the sky in relation to each other as accurately as possible. He lived on this observatory island until he got in a fight with the King of Denmark, who then forced him to leave. Perhaps Brahe’s most significant discovery was when he witnessed a supernova and realized that the universe was changing with time. Brahe’s discoveries have left a lasting impact on the astronomy world since his death and will cotinue to make an impact for years to come.

There were several significant historical events that occured during Tycho Brahe’s lifetime. In 1555, a group of Africans from Ghana (what was then known as Shama) were transported to London for the slave trade by London merchant John Lok. This was the first time that slaves had been brought to England. In 1593, Queen Elizabeth I’s doctor, Roderigo Lopez, was found guilty of attempting to poison her. To pay for his crimes, he was hung publically, and his death resulted in a large spur of anti-semitism in the country. Additionally, Brahe lived during the same time as Ivan the Terrible. Ivan the Terrible lived from 1530-1584 and was a monstrous Tzar of Russia for many years. He relentlessly conquered countries around him and even killed his own son in an argument.

Learning more about these famous astronomers was extremely rewarding for me. As we continue to delve into the class content, having the background information of the people whose discoveries that the foundation of our class relies on was beneficial for me to learn about. I believe that the most beneficial portion of this assignment for me was to learn about the historical events that happened during the time of Tycho Brahe’s existence. This helped to give me context about what else was occuring during the time of these major astronmers lives. This assignment helped me to realize that the timeline of astronomers’ discoveries was much longer ago than I had previously thought. I expected the discoveries to have taken place much later than the 1500s.

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Johannes Kepler in Context

Posted on January 30, 2024 by Maddy Pollard
Wikipedia

Johannes Kepler was born on December 27th, 1571 and died on November 15th, 1630. He is considered to be a pioneer in astronomy because of his three laws of planetary motion. His first law states that orbits are ellipses, so their motion follows conic sections. His second law states that in an orbit, equal areas are swept out in equal times, so that a planet’s orbital speed is faster the closer in distance it is to the Sun. His third law describes the mathematical relationship between distance of the Sun and time to orbit as P2 = ka3. His discoveries changed the way astronomers think about planetary orbits and are still influential today.

Kepler lived in the same time period as many major historical events. In 1611 the King James Version of the Bible was published for the Church of England. In 1620 the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts after traveling from England on the Mayflower. In addition, Kepler lived at the same time as William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare was born on April 26, 1564 and died on April 23, 1616. Shakespeare is considered one of the most famous playwrights to ever live and his works are still studied and performed today. Some of his most famous works include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear.

It was really interesting to learn about the timelines of when these people lived because it helped me put their lives into context. Before doing this it was really hard to place these astronomers and their discoveries on a timeline that was relevant to me, but connecting their lives to other historical figures and events helped with that. It was interesting to learn about what else was going on in the world when these astronomers were alive.

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Blog 1

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Muhammad Israr

How did we come up with the names and positions of the constellations in the night sky? This is a question I will be answering in this blog, and I hope to contribute to the diverse themes presented in the book. My focus is on the Arabic contribution to the naming of the stars and constellations. The history of Islamic astronomy is marked by the development of astronomy across three continents. As Arabic was the common language of that era, most knowledge was acquired in Arabic. Scholars from Central Asia, the Middle East, to North Africa, and most notably Al-Andalus (modern-day Iberian Peninsula), observed the sky as a means of understanding God’s creation and strengthening their faith in their respective religions. Among these scholars was the Persian polymath Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi. I will point out two constellations from his book “The Book of Fixed Stars,” written around 964 AD. The first example is al-Jady, commonly known as the Algedi constellation, which translates from Arabic as “the Goat.” Its scientific name is Alpha2 Capricorni, a southern triple star system in Capricorn. The second example is the constellation commonly known as Albali. Its Arabic name is al-Bāliʽ, translating to “the Swallower.” Scientifically, it is identified as the single star Epsilon Aquarii in Aquarius.

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Robert Navarro, Blog 01 Part 2!

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Robert Navarro

Hello everyone, I will post a few fun facts about Physics (and Astrophysics) every Tuesday!

Facts!!

  1. Scientists use detectors that are about the size of buildings to capture the products made by particle colliders. These detectors can pick up just about all particles created in these collisions.
  2. A big question that is still asked today, is the nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Dark Energy is about 68% of the Universe and 27% of the Universe is Dark Matter, and the rest is what we have only observed so far!
  3. The Voyager 1 spacecraft which was launched on September 5, 1977, is the farthest human sent object from Earth and has entered interstellar space, which means that it is in the process of leaving the influence of the Sun’s solar winds.

Image of the Day! 1/23/2024 Deep Nebulas: From Seagull to California

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Blog1: The powers of 10

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Garrett

Image from Video: Powers of Ten™ (1977)

The Powers of 10 is a video meant to help you understand the Universe’s relative size. After doing several exercises in class that dealt with relative sizes and distances, I realized I did not have a strong understanding of the scale of outer space. The video linked begins with an image of a man on Earth and proceeds to zoom out 1024 meters (it also zooms into the subatomic level, but for this blog, I was more focused on space). By the time we are at 107 meters, the entire Earth fits in the frame, and by 1013 meters, the whole solar system. Now, these numbers are already almost incomprehensible (1013 m = 10,000,000,000,000m), yet I was shocked to learn that the celestial sky still hasn’t moved from this perspective. Even 1015 meters zoomed out from Earth, where our sun is merely a dot, the same constellations observed from Earth still look the same. This helped put in perspective how far away the stars in our night sky are. Lastly, I know it’s pretty common knowledge that space is mostly empty, but once you get to the galactic scale, how much emptiness there is becomes even clearer. At a zoom out of 1021 meters, there were practically three light spots on the screen with an abyss of darkness in between. I seriously recommend anybody interested take a look at this video, as it helped me grasp the size of some of the things we discuss in class. 

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The farmers’almanac

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Angela Harris
Farmers’ Almanac Moon Phases

In elementary school, my library teacher always had the Farmers’ Almanac for the year on her desk. The Farmers’ Almanac has a forecaster who works under the pseudonym Caleb Weatherbee. Weatherbee’s predictions are based on a formula that takes many things into account including the Moon phases. Every fall, my classmates and I looked forward to the class when our teacher told us what the Farmers’ Almanac predicted for winter. I either left that class excited about the prospect of snow days or defeated from hearing it would be a mild winter.

I was recently reminded of the Farmers’ Almanac when I watched a TikTok where a farmer explained that she weans her foals based on days suggested by the book. These days are based on what phase the Moon is in and what constellation it is closest to. I found this especially interesting after reading the textbook chapter about the Moon. The special topic section titled “Does the Moon Influence Human Behavior?” mentions that the physiological patterns of many species follow the Moon’s phases. I think it is cool that even though the Moon’s impact on weaning foals might not be explained scientifically many farmers still swear by the Farmers’ Almanacs’ suggestions.  

Sources: Farmers’ Almanac, Scientific American

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Our Speed Limit

Posted on January 23, 2024 by John Newell

(its slower than you think)

Many people know that the laws of physics dictate that nothing – and I mean nothing – can travel faster than the speed of light. It is not possible for any object, nor any information, to exceed 299,000,000 meters per second. At first, this seems to be an incredibly high number… and to be fair, on an Earthly scale, the speed of light is enormous. But, as we zoom out into our Solar System, and even just to our planet and moon, it becomes apparent that the speed of light isn’t all that fast, relatively speaking.

James O’Donoghue

Examine the gif above. 1.255 seconds for the fastest possible interaction between the Earth and the moon! “But they are so far away!” Yes and no. Relative to myself, sitting on the couch, and the TV remote, 10 feet away, indeed the moon is far. But the solar system is large – larger than we tend to think. This website might help to open our eyes as to the true scale of our solar system. With this added perspective, our speed limit begins to feel smaller than ever before. Personally, I can’t help but feel the isolating effect of being so far away from everything, not simply in distance, but in time itself.

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Blog 1: Eclipse Chasers

Posted on January 23, 2024 by liamoneill95
Confessions of an Eclipse Chaser | Essay | Zócalo Public SquareVisit

On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will happen in North America. For those in Nashville, a mere 2-3 hour drive will allow viewers to witness it. For some, it is worth the journey to witness this rare occurrence, and for others perhaps not. For a select few, however, it is always worth the journey. These people are called eclipse chasers, and they have devoted their lives to reliving the spectacle of the eclipse as many times as they can. For eclipse chasers, being in the moon’s shadow for the few minutes in which the total eclipse takes place is an addiction. They plan trips years, even decades ahead in order to witness as many eclipses as they possibly can. You may think that this is crazy – a waste of time, money and energy just to see what they have already seen many times before. However, eclipse chasers are a large community, many of whom talk about their experiences here. There is clearly a somewhat addicting aspect to witnessing eclipses, something that those who have not been lucky enough to see one may not be able to grasp. The next eclipse is on a Monday, and to view it in its totality, a decently long drive is required. That being said, an eclipse chaser wouldn’t bat an eye at a 2 hour drive to witness this astronomical spectacle, and maybe you shouldn’t either!

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The expanding universe

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Jonas Kobza

Most people understand that the earth moves around the sun and rotates on its axis. However the earth moves more than just around the sun. In fact, our entire actually orbits around the center of the Milky Way at over 500,000 miles per hour. So why don’t we crash into anything? The answer is that everything in our galaxy, and especially in our universe, is really, really, far apart, so it will be a long (billions of years) time before we even come close to something that could hit is. In addition, all the galaxies around the Milky Way are actually moving apart from us. Furthermore, the farther a galaxy is away from us, the faster it is moving away. By solving for the rate of expansion using big telescopes, we can determine the approximate age of the universe by extrapolating the growth rate backward. So we know that the universe is about 14 billion years old! This is super cool!

Image courtesy of SciTechDaily
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Blog 1: Asymmetry of the Moon

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Mackenna Guadagnoli
This is a side-by-side comparion of the near and far sides (left and right respectively) of the moon.

By looking at the image above, it’s clear to see that the dark splotches we’ve come to associate with our closest cosmic neighbor, the Moon, are only seen on one side! The farside of the moon is much more uniform with a lot more craters than the side we see. This stark difference has puzzled scientists in the decades following the first lunar orbiter, but with advancing technology they believe they’ve reached an explanation!

While scientists across the field may not agree on all the details, it seems that a general consensus has been reached that because of the nearside’s thinner crust and higher concentration of “heat-producing and radioactive elements,” more mantle material was able to reach the surface, creating the dark spots, called maria, we see today. How these elements came to be more abundant on the nearside is still debated. There are two prevailing ideas. One is that a major impact event on the Moon’s south pole led to these elements being dispersed within the nearside mantle. The other is that due to early Earth’s emanating heat, the near side stayed molten longer, allowing it to accumulate more of these elements. Future missions are in the works to gather more samples from various sites to try and refine this hypothesis.

If you’re interested in learning more about this, feel free to ask questions via comments or check out these articles by the Planetary Society and Brown University!

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