Tag Archives: astro201

Searching for intelligent life

Posted on April 5, 2015 by bryancm1

Humans have always fascinated themselves with the idea that maybe we aren’t so alone in the universe. We have made efforts to find extraterrestrials and so far turned up nothing. Is there any hope for them finding us first? A number of organized attempts have been made to let “others” know that we exist. The […] Continue reading →

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Jupiter’s volcanic moon: Io

Posted on April 5, 2015 by bryancm1

Io sports a surface temperature well below zero (around -130 degrees C). This is heavily contrasted by the fact that Io is also the most volcanically active body in our solar system. It is known to have over 400 currently active volcanoes. If you weren’t yet convinced about the effects of tidal heating, think about […] Continue reading →

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Voyager 2

Posted on April 5, 2015 by michellelei

Almost all of the information and pictures scientists have today from the outer planets is due to flyby missions such as NASA’s Voyager 2. As we learned in the last unit, flyby space probes are especially helpful because they can pass by and gather information on multiple planets within one single mission, and that is… Continue reading Voyager 2 Continue reading →

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Put a Ring on It

Posted on April 4, 2015 by michellelei

An interesting characteristic that all the jovian planets possess is their rings. The most remarkable and noticeable of these are Saturn’s, which extend hundreds of thousands of kilometers wide. However, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune all have rings as well, on a much smaller scale. Although the rings are rather wide, they are only 1-1000 m… Continue reading Put a Ring on It Continue reading →

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Io’s crazy volcanoes!

Posted on April 4, 2015 by karenagrebenc

photo from space.com So, we all know that Io is notoriously the volcanic moon of Jupiter, but apparently a couple of years ago it randomly got…MORE volcanic? According to this article, in August of 2013 three large eruptions occurred on Io.  To put it in perspective, this is the number of large eruptions that we […] Continue reading →

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White dwarf supernovae

Posted on April 4, 2015 by newbeelity

White dwarf supernovae only occur in a binary system, in which one of them is a white dwarf while the other can be a giant star or just a main sequence star. As far as we know, a white dwarf is the remnant of a star after the nuclear fusion inside its core has ceased,… Continue reading →

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Halley’s Comet

Posted on April 4, 2015 by newbeelity

Halley’s comet is a short-period comet, which can be seen from Earth every 75-76 years so that a person could see it at most twice during his or her lifetime. It is undoubtedly the most famous comet. The last time it returned was in 1986, and it will be back in 2061 as predicted. Halley’s… Continue reading →

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New Horizons

Posted on April 4, 2015 by emilyksharp

Exploring Pluto Pluto, the small icy body at the edge of our planetary system, has been under scrutiny in scientific …

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Exoplanets: Planets Not Orbiting the Sun

Posted on April 2, 2015 by ctogrye

Hey there! Today I’m going to be discussing the topic. The definition of an Exoplanet is a planet which orbits a star (or stellar remnant or brown dwarf) which is not the Sun. Thus far, over 1900 exoplanets have been discovered. 480 of these exoplanets are confirmed to exist in multi-planet systems. These planets are […] Continue reading →

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Pluto: Why isn’t it a planet?

Posted on April 2, 2015 by ctogrye

Hey Followers! Today, I’m going to be discussing some basic characteristics of the now dwarf planet Pluto. Pluto is the largest object in the Kuiper belt. It is approximately 30-49 AU from the Sun depending on its position in its elliptical orbit (this variance also indicates a high eccentricity in its orbit). An interesting phenomenon […] Continue reading →

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