Tag Archives: astro201

Is Pluto a planet?

Posted on April 8, 2014 by colepospisil

Recently, Pluto was demoted to being called a “dwarf planet”. This has caused an uproar among many people who suddenly discovered that their favorite planet was Pluto. The idea that we change how we refer to a desolate rock is apparently unbelievable to a large portion of the population. The question of whether Pluto is a […] Continue reading →

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Ceres, the Inner Solar System Dwarf Planet

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Chad F

Ceres was discovered in 1801 and is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.  It was originally classified as a planet, but has since been demoted to a dwarf planet.  It is thought to have an icy mantle and a rocky core with the possibility of a subsurface ocean and thin atmosphere. […] Continue reading →

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Saturn’s Rings

Posted on April 8, 2014 by katiew

In the outer solar system, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all have rings, but Saturn’s are by far the largest and most spectacular. Galileo was the first to discover them in 1610, but for years they remained a mystery and much is still unknown about them. In the 1980s, the Voyager missions got a closer […] Continue reading →

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Halley’s Comet

Posted on April 8, 2014 by katiew

Halley’s Comet is the most well known comet because it is the only short-term comet that is visible from Earth with the naked eye. Halley’s Comet was seen multiple times throughout history. The first known observation of Halley’s Comet was in 239 B.C. by Chinese astronomers. When it returned in 164 B.C. and 87 B.C. […] Continue reading →

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Wouldn’t it be something…

Posted on April 8, 2014 by hindsolar

The question of life outside of our planet has been one of great interest for a while in the scientific community. When considering extrasolar planets or planets outside of our solar system I often wonder if there is some other planet in another solar system that is much like ours. Not long ago NASA’s Kepler […] Continue reading →

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Astronomy Jargon

Posted on April 8, 2014 by eschellhase

Some words I like. Here are some words I’ve encountered in astronomy I had not known elsewhere. Barycenter–The point of the center of mass between two or more bodies. Lagrangian points–Zones around the sun where an object placed there will orbit the sun relative the the Earth’s orbital progression. “Dwarf Planet”–The International Astronomical Union always […] Continue reading →

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Interiors of Jovian Planets

Posted on April 8, 2014 by eschellhase

Jovian planets also go by the name of giant planets. In our solar system we have Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Their interiors look much different than the interiors of the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Mars, Earth, Venus, the Moon). Earth contains a metallic, solid core. As a kid I grew up hearing that the gas […] Continue reading →

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80% of the Universe That We Can’t See

Posted on April 8, 2014 by joshkphilips

Image Source Over the past couple of centuries, we have learned a great deal about our Universe. However, the more we seem to learn about the cosmos, the more we realize that we do not understand. When Jan Oort and Fritz Zwicky first hypothesized the existence of dark matter in our Universe, a breakthrough in […] Continue reading →

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Wobbling Stars

Posted on April 7, 2014 by bsturge93

Most people would be surprised to know that every star in the sky is not a “stationary” center of their solar systems. Of course, the entire solar system is flying through space, orbiting the center of its galaxy. But many would look at the Sun and say that relative to the rest of the Solar … Continue reading Wobbling Stars → Continue reading →

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Is Pluto a Planet?

Posted on April 7, 2014 by hindsolar

  I can recall sitting and listening to an astronomy presentation during my eighth grade year. The man who presented told us that Pluto was no longer a planet. For some reason this bothered me because all my life I had been told that Pluto was in fact a planet. I can also recall taking […] Continue reading →

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