Tag Archives: astro2110

Blog 7 – Where did life on Earth come from?

Many people, myself included, may have assumed that life developed here on Earth and evolved from there. However, other promising theories suggest that life may have originated elsewhere and then traveled to Earth on meteorites. These theories are called panspermia theories. Although space is a very harsh vacuum environment, experiments have determined that a number […] Continue reading

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Political Economics of Space Exploration

Image from NASA Press Release I remember when I was young thinking, why haven’t we put humans on Mars yet? We have the feasibility to do so, but why? The answer comes down to the intersection between power politics and economics that often hamper, restrict and sometimes fuel the drive for space exploration. Before this […] Continue reading

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Scientists Dream of Complex Life on Europa

Images from BBC Article on Europan Life and CNET Article on Proposed NASA Rover The search for extraterrestrial life is often focused upon deep space with distances the human mind can barely comprehend. However, evidence has been building that complex life could be present in our cosmological backyard on the icy moon of Europa. The […] Continue reading

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The Universe and Me

     Looking back on the whole course, I felt like I learned so much about our solar system and beyond. I think it’s important to understand where you come from so you can better understand yourself and your place in the universe. Now, I definitely know more about the theory behind the formation of our solar […] Continue reading

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The Drake Equation and its Implications

     I’ve always wondered if there was life like humans in space, and thanks to the Drake equation, I’m now 99.9% sure there are multiple alien civilizations as advanced, if not more advanced, than us in our own galaxy. The Drake Equation hypothesizes that the number of alien civilizations that can communicate can be calculated with […] Continue reading

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Color-Band-Filters

(Rudimentary colored filters) This semester, I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to do undergraduate research in the realm of astronomy here at Vanderbilt. My particular work’s main focus has been trying to find a correlation between the redshift and the luminosity of different stars observed in the universe. I created a code via […] Continue reading

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Chemosynthesis

(The Chemosynthetic Process) I remember back in AP Biology in high school, my teacher briefly mentioned during the unit on autotrophs, that there are certain types of organisms who create their own energy but do it in the absence of the sun. To me this was a complete conundrum. In every science related class, presentation […] Continue reading

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Blog 8 – Changed View of Astronomy

I’ve learned so much about the formation of star systems, planets, the physics and chemistry that sustain life, the different space missions that have pushed technology and engineering, and more. I have a much greater appreciation for missions that collect data from other planets and star systems now that I understand the level of technology, […] Continue reading

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Blog 7 – Astrobiology

Astrobiology is the scientific search of life in the universe. There are three major areas of astrobiology: studying the origin and evolution of life on Earth, finding worlds suitable for life, and finding evidence for life on other worlds. The first area teaches us about the necessary conditions for certain life to develop. Many researchers […] Continue reading

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Cumulative Post Featuring the JUICE Launch

As I reflect on my blog posts this semester as well as overall topics within the class, I appreciate the time aspect. By that I mean that we have examined the past, present, and future of astronomy. My blogs included everything from the Carrington Event, a result of a large solar flare in 1859, to […] Continue reading

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