Tag Archives: astro201

The Planet Formerly Known as Pluto

Posted on April 10, 2013 by marknshirleyvu

I remember that growing up, I was always told that there were 9 planets in our Solar System. I always found Pluto very interesting, and even more so now that it has been demoted from its planet status.  This article provides many entertaining facts about the famous dwarf planet, a few of which I found extremely […] Continue reading →

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Comets

Posted on April 10, 2013 by jhughes216

Near Earth Experience The snowballs of the universe, comets are amazing bodies of ice and rock orbiting a star from a great distance. In our own solar system, these balls of ice mostly inhabit an area known as the Oort Cloud. This outer region surrounds our solar system from all different directions. Because the cloud […] Continue reading →

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The Planet Pluto

Posted on April 9, 2013 by jhughes216

The little planet that could… Although I am only 22 years old, the world has changed a lot since I grew up. No longer are the days of hearing the obnoxious but familiar sound of dial-up internet, listening to music with a walkman in your hand instead of an ipod in your pocket, and above all else, […] Continue reading →

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Oxygen on Europa?

Posted on April 9, 2013 by mirandaskunz

Europa, which is one of the four largest moons orbiting Jupiter, is currently one of the top candidates for potential life. Europa’s surface is made of ice, but beneath all this ice, is an ocean of water. This water is likely due to tidal heating caused by Jupiter and is evidenced by the magnetic field […] Continue reading →

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M-theory Might Explain Everything

Posted on April 9, 2013 by surujdeka

Have you ever thought about the Big Bang? And what might have happened before it? If you have come to blindly accept the widely accepted theory about how our universe was created, you might have missed the various loopholes the theory presents. For instance, the Big Bang theory states that before the huge explosion took […] Continue reading →

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Neutrinos and Other Strange Things in Space

Posted on April 9, 2013 by mirandaskunz

An article on SPACE.com lists the “Top 10 Strangest Things in Space” including antimatter, exoplanets, quasars, and many others. I thought this list gave a very interesting overview (and cool pictures) of these more cutting-edge areas of astronomical research. It also explained why the existence of these things are significant. For example, galactic cannibalism may […] Continue reading →

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A Big Snack

Posted on April 9, 2013 by a2megal

The physics major in me has always been incredibly interested in black holes. We haven’t spoken about them much in this course, but there are likely black holes at the center of each galaxy, and thus studying black holes can tell us a lot about galaxies in other parts of the universe. For the first […] Continue reading →

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Searching the Sky

Posted on April 9, 2013 by a2megal

In class this week I was curious about how astronomers are able to constantly search for exoplanets. On one hand, I knew that the Kepler Space Telescope had played an integral part in discovering the roughly 2,740 exoplanetary candidates as of January 2013. However, keeping in mind how vast space is and how quickly exoplanets […] Continue reading →

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The toughest animal on the planet

Posted on April 9, 2013 by fathomingthestars

Most creatures require a specific set of conditions to survive: a certain amount of oxygen, temperature, pressure, food, etc.  However, some animals can live in conditions so extreme they kill almost everything else.  These animals are called, fittingly, extremophiles.  One extremophile is the tardigrade, more commonly called water bears or moss piglets. In general, tardigrades […] Continue reading →

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100,000 Stars

Posted on April 9, 2013 by kevinm387

Above is a video of an awesome website, 100,000 Stars. This website is an interactive, 3D map of the closest 100,000 stars to us. The video gives a little taste, but I encourage everyone to go to the site and explore for yourselves. Zooming in on our Solar System, you encounter the Oort Cloud first, […] Continue reading →

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