Tag Archives: blog8

Asteroid With Rings Found

Posted on April 6, 2014 by waldentb

Last month an asteroid in orbiting between Saturn and Uranus was discovered to hang a ring system. This asteroid is …

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Science Fiction to Science Fact

Posted on March 30, 2014 by jblubin

It has always been the fantasy of science fiction writers to mine an asteroid for its precious materials. Stories such as Catch that Rabbit by Isaac Asimov, The Rolling Stones by Robert A. Heinlein, and the Heechee stories by Frederik Pohl are among hundreds that feature futuristic mining camps on asteroids. But now humanity has … Continue reading Science Fiction to Science Fact → Continue reading →

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A Breakthrough in Our Knowledge of the Big Bang

Posted on March 29, 2014 by philipapelles

BICEP 2, a telescope located at the South Pole, has detected proof for gravitational waves, which are practically ripples in space-time inferring there was some sort of disturbance or bang that caused the universe to form and expand. Gravitational waves up to this point were just theorized to explain how during the Big Bang the… Continue reading →

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Rings and Diamonds? A Girl’s Best Friend!

Posted on March 27, 2014 by hollyreichert

  On Jupiter and Saturn, scientists have recently discovered that there could be a lot of carbon on the planet.  This carbon could be present in the form of diamonds that rain down from the sky.  While the diamonds eventually melt and don’t stay around for long, they can be as large as a centimeter […] Continue reading →

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Asteroids in Orbit?

Posted on April 12, 2013 by theskyisbeautifultonight

It looks like we’ll be bringing an asteroid home sometime soon.  NASA wants to identify an asteroid in deep space, figure out a way to capture it, and bring it into our own planetary region, ultimately setting it in orbit around our moon, all by the year 2025.  This proposal was included as a part […] Continue reading →

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The K-Pg Event, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Exterminate the Dinosaurs

Posted on April 10, 2013 by rtjobe

Also known as the K-T Event, its name is derived from the German words for Cretaceous and Paleogene. It has been a long-held belief by scientists that it was an impact by a large comet or asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs. Fossil records indicate that 66 million years ago, almost 75% of life on […] Continue reading →

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Comets and Meteor Showers

Posted on April 10, 2013 by YanruChen

Everybody loves comets. Just think of a flashy ball with a lovely tail crossing the night sky. How beautiful it is! Most people like me have many misconceptions about comets however. The most surprising thing about comets I learned from Astronomy 201 is that meteor showers are actually from comets! How can that be? The […] Continue reading →

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Gushing With Life

Posted on April 10, 2013 by burnspress

The search for extrasolar planets and potential for alien life is one of the hottest topics in modern science. As such, I thought it would be interesting to discuss the place that some scientists say is most likely to alien host life. Enceladus seems to be at the top of everyone’s list for alien host […] Continue reading →

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Astronomy and its Misconceptions

Posted on April 10, 2013 by zoodrey

I was browsing earlier and decided to think back on some of the assumptions I had about our Solar System before beginning this class. I stumbled upon this page and was proud to say that although I was not THAT clueless, I was guilty of some of the common misconceptions about Astronomy. It was interesting to … Continue reading » Continue reading →

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TESS: a New Eye in the Sky

Posted on April 10, 2013 by zvgio

NASA has a new project set to launch in 2017 and it’s going to be big. The TESS project will be tasked with the most trendy task in astronomy these days: finding exoplanets. Using a slew of wide-view cameras, TESS will peer tirelessly at the stars looking for “transits,” or dips in brightness when an […] Continue reading →

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