Tag Archives: astro201

Blog Post #10: 100 Year Starship

After learning about all of these thoughts and ideas about interstellar travel and the widespread interest in human exploration to …

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Blog Post #9: 11 of the Weirdest Solutions to the Fermi Paradox

Of all the topics covered in this class, I found the Fermi Paradox the most interesting, and this is probably …

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Astronomy in “The Big Bang Theory” and “Interstellar”

I originally came into Astronomy 201 just wanted to fulfill my last hours as a second-semester senior at Vanderbilt University with a subject I was interested in. Now that the course is coming its conclusion, the class has evolved into…

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‘Definite Evidence’ Of Alien Life Within 20-30 Years

In a panel discussion earlier this month, NASA Chief Scientist, Ellen Stofan, said that there is definite evidence that we will find alien life within the next 20-30 years. She defines life not as ‘little green men’ but microbes, which…

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Drafting behind the Millennium Falcon

“I’m going to make the jump to light speed…” Are famous words spoken by Han Solo as he and other Rebel Alliance members make the jump to light speed in hopes of outrunning the Empire. In films like Star Wars and Star Trek, we see many instances like the above example where it really is […] Continue reading

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Harnessing the power of a star

Humans have been trying to find an adequate and cost efficient method to achieve nuclear fusion. We have tried such things as cold fusion, but failed due to the fusion process needing extreme amounts of heat or kinetic energy to work. The only place we see this naturally happening is in the core of stars […] Continue reading

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Forgotten Step-Constellation, Twice Removed

There are twelve zodiac signs to correspond with the twelve months of time it takes our Earth to make one full revolution around the sun; each zodiac represents a specific star constellation that the Sun is within as we travel around it. However, there is a thirteenth constellation named Ophiuchus that is not often included. […] Continue reading

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Pluto and I

This is the first-full color photo  taken of Pluto ever that NASA published yesterday. The space probe New Horizons took the image about 71 million miles away as it nears the “dwarf” planet. New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched and the first in history to visit Pluto. The unprecedented flyby is expected to take […] Continue reading

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Liquid Confidence

“I believe we are going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth in the next decade and definitive evidence in the next 10 to 20 years,” Ellen Stofan, chief scientist for NASA. “It’s definitely not an if, it’s a when,” said Jeffery Newmark, one of Stofan’s colleagues. NASA made these bold claims at a […] Continue reading

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Historical Astronomers in Context

Tycho Brahe – Born December 14, 1546; Died October 24, 1601 Tycho Brahe was important to astronomy, because he witnessed a supernova and through that he rejected the Aristotelian belief that the celestial realm was unchanging. During the period that Tycho Brahe was alive the Renaissance was going on. This was a period starting in […] Continue reading

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