Tag Archives: astro201

The deep blue under the crust

Posted on March 16, 2015 by farhannshabab

NASA’s Cassini mission scientists announced recently that Saturn’s sixth-largest moon, Enceladus, has a warm ocean at its southern pole. The ocean is 9.7 km deep and resides under the moon’s icy crust of about 40 km. Tiny grains of rock were detected by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft near Saturn. This indicates that there may be hydrothermal […] Continue reading →

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Other Life in our Solar System?

Posted on March 16, 2015 by christophermfitzgerald

Through the use of computer modeling, a team of NASA scientists have confirmed that Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, contains water under its icy top layers. New modeling that takes into account salinity of the planet’s water suggests that below the surface … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Nuclear Fission or Fusion?

Posted on March 16, 2015 by christophermfitzgerald

Fusion involves the combination of nuclei between two atoms and fission is the process of splitting the nuclei of atoms. When looking at the release of energy from nuclear fission versus nuclear fusion there is a clear winner: Nuclear Fusion. Through … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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40 Year Odyssey of The Voyager 1

Posted on March 16, 2015 by farhannshabab

The Voyager 1, launched on 5th September in 1977, is the farthest spacecraft and hence the farthest man made object from Earth. At a distance of 12 billion miles from Earth, the spacecraft is escaping the Solar system at a speed of 1 million miles a day. At that distance, it takes mission control’s communications, travelling […] Continue reading →

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Panspermia: An Alternative Hypothesis

Posted on March 16, 2015 by ctogrye

Hey Readers! Today I’m going to briefly discuss the idea of panspermia. For much of human history, we have wondered how such complex life on Earth came to be. Many suggest that life sprung up as the result of the natural aggregation of self replicating particles as in the primordial soup hypothesis. However another theory suggests […] Continue reading →

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Death and Space

Posted on March 16, 2015 by alephnulluniverse

In old space movies, when someone is left exposed in space, they explode. Well this have some merit, it is not 100% true. In space and its pressure (or lack of) causes the water in the human body will expand into water vapor. This causes severe internal swelling up to twice the size. Due to […] Continue reading →

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Nuclear Fusion: Future of Energy?

Posted on March 16, 2015 by ctogrye

Hey there everyone! Today I am going to give a brief overview of nuclear fusion, specifically in regards to ITER, or the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. Currently being built in the south of France, ITER aspires to be the largest tokomak fusion reactor in the world. Experiments are currently slated to begin in 2020 with […] Continue reading →

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Solar Flares: Terrifying, Fascinating, or Both?

Posted on March 16, 2015 by adyacob

Check out this animated gif released by NASA earlier this week. Just a few days ago, the Solar Dynamics Observatory …

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Dawn Reaches Ceres

Posted on March 16, 2015 by adyacob

Ceres, the dwarf planet located in the Asteroid Belt, has a new inhabitant. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has just recently entered …

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Probing the Sun

Posted on March 16, 2015 by alephnulluniverse

With our current technology, the Sun is not physically explorable with its photosphere reaching 10,000 degrees F and its coreona reaching 3.5 milion degreees F. Yet, humans have multiple probes receiving data from orbiting spacecrafts. Currently there are 5 spacecrafts watching the Sun: WIND, SOHO, ACE, STEREO A, and STEREO B. The spacecrafts take in solar […] Continue reading →

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