Tag Archives: astro2110

Astrobiology & The Search For Life

Posted on April 30, 2023 by brandodan

Astrobiology is the study of life that occurs somewhere other than Earth, as we’ve learned in class, and this blog post emphasizes its developments and possible future directions. There have been substantial scientific, technological, and programmatic advances achieved in the hunt for extraterrestrial life since the 2015 publication of NASA’s Astrobiology Strategy. Understanding the beginnings […] Continue reading →

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Blog 7 – The Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 30, 2023 by constellationsarentreal

When learning astronomy, one often wonders if humanity is alone in the galaxy. Physicist Enrico Fermi pondered this question, and ultimately came to a rather profound conclusion. Statistically our galaxy should be home to at least a handful of advanced societies more than capable of interstellar travel, so why have we not encountered any? Fermi […] Continue reading →

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Asteroid Mining

Posted on April 30, 2023 by sahilreddy2

Hayabusa: A robotic spacecraft by JAXA to acquire a sample from the asteroid Itokawa Asteroid mining can be crucial in helping us to acquire rare materials in our solar system. The asteroid belt has 8% metal-rich asteroids and 75% volatile-rich carbonaceous asteroids.  Currently the technique is mainly just theoretical as we don’t have the infrastructure […] Continue reading →

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How Extremophiles Work

Posted on April 30, 2023 by brandodan

As we talked about in class a few weeks ago, Extremophiles are living things that flourish under challenging conditions.They are amazing because they can endure situations that would be fatal to the majority of other life forms. They originate from Archaea, Eubacteria, and Eukarya, the three branches of the three-domain categorization scheme. Extremophiles have caused […] Continue reading →

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The Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 30, 2023 by sahilreddy2

A possible solution to the Fermi Paradox? The Fermi Paradox attempts to answer the question about extraterrestrial life that so many humans have thought about for centuries. Enrico Fermi a physicist, in 1950, while discussing extraterrestrial life he began to wonder if aliens did in fact exist then how have they not expanded throughout the […] Continue reading →

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The History and Future of the Universe: A Time Scale

Posted on April 30, 2023 by Europa

If you’d like to feel the crushing weight of existential dread as we approach the end of this course, and for me, the end of my time at Vanderbilt, I have just the video for you! It’s a YouTube video called “Age of Universe: Time in Perspective,” and it uses a time-to-volume comparison in order […] Continue reading →

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Dragonfly: Quadcopter on Titan

Posted on April 30, 2023 by willems49

After the recent rocket launch in preparation for the Artemis mission, I decided to look into the other space exploration projects currently underway. One that stuck out to me is the Dragonfly mission. After the landing of Huygens, a space probe sent from Cassini, in 2005, astronomers have desired a more advanced exploration of Titan. […] Continue reading →

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Could We Even Communicate With Aliens If We Found Them?

Posted on April 30, 2023 by willems49

After learning about the Golden Record, Arecibo message, and other ways astronomers have attempted to communicate with extraterrestrial life (if it is out there), I can’t help but think this outreach is very limited to civilizations that communicate in exactly the same way as we do. This seems unlikely to me, given the extreme diversity […] Continue reading →

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What’s Next?

Posted on April 29, 2023 by alicebyrnes

While I’ve always been vaguely interested in astronomy, before taking this class some part of my brain assumed we had somewhat stagnated on space exploration. This is largely because I knew other stars and galaxies were so far away, and we just don’t have the technology to travel to them. Ultimately, this class helped me […] Continue reading →

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Where Are All the Aliens? Potential Solutions to the Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 29, 2023 by Europa

In class, Dr. G mentioned a Wait But Why article about the Fermi Paradox. I absolutely love this article and the entire concept of the Fermi Paradox–I even wrote about it in my Common App essay four years ago! The Fermi Paradox, first informally presented by physicist Enrico Fermi, describes the apparent contradiction between our […] Continue reading →

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