Tag Archives: astro201

Life On Titan?

We may not have to look very far from our solar system for habitable worlds that can sustain life. We already know that Mars had conditions suitable for life in its early years and there is a possibility that Venus might have been the same way. But scientists are now excited about the possibility that […] Continue reading

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Venus

Venus is a unique planet among the terrestrial worlds and possesses  many features that make it an interesting planet to study.  Often called a sister planet of Earth because of the two planet’s similar sizes and compositions, Venus is, in some ways, a very different planet from Earth.  To start, Venus is completely inhospitable to life, with […] Continue reading

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The Little Solar System that Could

Pluto may no longer be a planet, but it sure is proving to be one of the most interesting objects in our solar system.  We’ve kicked it out of the planet club, but Pluto seems to have plenty of friends of its own, with scientists thinking the little dwarf planet could have 10 more moons […] Continue reading

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The Magic of Scattering

Ever wondered why the sky looks blue? Or red during sunsets? No, it has nothing to do with light reflecting from the oceans (think about it, why would the sky look blue over inland areas then?). The real reason is the phenomenon called scattering. Scattering occurs when light rays are deflected from their original path […] Continue reading

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Everyday is SUNday

The Sun is the single most important object in our solar system. It makes up over 99% of the mass of the solar system, exerts gravitational force over the whole […] Continue reading

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Mass Conversion of Energy

Albert Einstein’s most commonly known contribution to science, E=mc2, relates energy to mass. The energy conservation law preached to high school physics students states that energy can neither be created […] Continue reading

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By Chance…

I set out without a real direction for this blog post. (I suppose that makes sense since some of the more interesting discoveries you can come across on the web pop up when you jump from page-to-page.) During my search for a new and interesting article on some aspect of astronomy, I came across a […] Continue reading

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Magellan to the New World

In class we recently discussed the four primary types of robotic missions that we can send into space: flyby orbiter lander or probe sample return mission In general the concept of sending physical objects into space so that we can collect data about plates, stars, or anything really that we can’t directly observe here on […] Continue reading

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Blog #6: Aurora Borealis

After watching the time lapse videos on the Northern Lights (aka Aurora Borealis) I was fascinated to learn how this occurs.  As you might have picked up from the video, most of the people interviewed weren’t able to answer the questions with … Continue reading Continue reading

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Blog #5: A Necessary Truth to Understand

Regardless of your political opinions, Al Gore raises an interesting and relevant point of our Earth’s increasing climate change and explains why this is occurring in his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.  Al Gore explains how susceptible our atmosphere is to … Continue reading Continue reading

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