Tag Archives: astro201

The Future of the Sun and What It Means for Earth

Posted on March 15, 2015 by robbyks

Right now, the Sun is about halfway through its main sequence stage. It has always intrigued me how the Sun will evolve once it is past this phase. How will the Sun change? What will happen to Earth and the other planets? In approximately 5.4 billion years, the Sun will have exhausted all of its […] Continue reading →

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A trip to Venus?

Posted on March 15, 2015 by karenagrebenc

video from phys.org It seems like all of the talk in the field of space travel these days has been too focused on a trip to one single location…Mars.  But noticing while studying these past few chapters that Venus is actually a bit closer to Earth than Mars, that brought up a question in my […] Continue reading →

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Could the sun live for over a trillion years?

Posted on March 15, 2015 by agiantchicken

Sun and hydrogen burning: Thinking outside the bubble Yes it can! But not except under unusual circumstances which do not naturally occur in G-type stars as our sun. This is due to the fact that the core is the only part of the sun in which temperatures and pressure are high enough to fuse helium […] Continue reading →

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Blog Post #6: Gas Giant Rings

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Elizabeth D.

Universe Today Very few people know that Saturn is not the only planet in our solar system that has rings. …

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Space Movies – Fact or Fiction?

Posted on March 14, 2015 by bryancm1

Our in class discussion about some space movies had me venturing down a rabbit hole about Hollywood’s misconceptions about space. The most entertaining aspect for me is how movies portray character deaths in space. Movies always find creative and dramatic ways for their characters to die in space – none of which are accurate. In […] Continue reading →

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Dark matter

Posted on March 14, 2015 by newbeelity

Dark matter is a hypothetical matter that neither emits nor absorbs light or any other electromagnetic radiations so that it cannot be seen with any telescopes nowadays. However, dark matter accounts for most of the matter in the universe, and it should be responsible for many phenomena occurring in the universe. According to the standard… Continue reading →

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The Aurora Phenomenom

Posted on March 14, 2015 by bryancm1

Auroras are caused when particles from the sun become trapped in a planet’s magnetosphere. These particles gain energy and travel down the magnetic field and collide with atmospheric atoms and molecules. This collision is what produces the light that we see in an aurora. We have all probably seen pictures of auroras on Earth. Do […] Continue reading →

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Climate Change

Posted on March 14, 2015 by newbeelity

Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time (i.e., decades to millions of years). (Definition from Wikipedia) Climate change is caused by biotic processes, variations in solar radiation, plate tectonics and volcanic eruptions. Human activities have also been regarded as a cause of recent… Continue reading →

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The Biggest Volcano in the Solar System

Posted on March 14, 2015 by emilyksharp

The biggest volcano in the solar system was discovered in 1971 by the space probe Mariner 9, though it is …

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Debating about the Dwarf Planets

Posted on March 14, 2015 by oliviasn

When I received an e-mail from my astronomy professor from last semester, David Weintraub, about an article that he had recently written for The Conversation, I was quite excited to read it. Professor Weintraub is very passionate about Pluto and quite vocal about his disapproval of its demoted status. This article, entitled “NASA missions may […] Continue reading →

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