Tag Archives: astro2110

Blog Post 4 Chicxulub Impact

Posted on March 22, 2022 by isaachuggins

The Chicxulub Impact happened approximately 66 million years ago, defining the end of the Cretaceous Period and the beginning of the Paleocene, as well as the end of the Mesozoic Era and the beginning of the Cenozoic Era. This impact not only managed to eradicate the dinosaurs as the dominant lifeform on the planet but […] Continue reading →

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Proxima: Our Cosmic Neighbor

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Quint Gfroerer

The closest star to our solar system is one named Proxima Centauri. Proxima Centauri is a relatively small star, as it is a red dwarf star with about 12.5% the mass of the Sun and only about 0.17% as bright as the Sun. Proxima Centauri resides about 4.25 light years away from Earth, and is […] Continue reading →

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The Cassini Spacecraft

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Quint Gfroerer

The story of the Cassini spacecraft is one of scientific discovery and self sacrifice. Cassini was launched in 1997 and spent 20 years in space, focusing on the planet Saturn, its moons, and its rings, before the spacecraft’s intentional demise in 2017. Through Cassini, we were able to land a probe on Titan, Saturn’s largest […] Continue reading →

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Theory of the Creation of the Moon

Posted on March 22, 2022 by McKenzieKing

Over the decades, there have been many hypotheses made about how our Moon was formed. There are many possibilities that we can rule out simply due to the facts that we know about the Universe. Firstly, we know that the…

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How Astronomy may harm Life on Earth

Posted on March 22, 2022 by gcomartin

A new study by Nature Astronomy has tapped an estimate for the greenhouse gas emissions of the astronomy industry. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the global astronomy industry is much smaller than many other industries, its emissions are strikingly large. The number estimated by this study is a staggering 20 million tonnes of CO2 annually. […] Continue reading →

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The Future of Fusion

Posted on March 22, 2022 by alexbawa

While stars are powered by nuclear fusion, nuclear reactors here on Earth have yet to make that leap. Fission is our only readily available source of nuclear power, but it is significantly less lucrative than its counterpart. The difference is the process, which combines two isotopes of hydrogen to trigger an energy release instead of […] Continue reading →

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Making our Earth

Posted on March 21, 2022 by gcomartin

New findings by the AKARI space telescope, coupled with surface modeling at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology present new evidence that the asteroid matter which composes Earth was located much further out in the solar system than initially thought. Their study involved computer modeling to develop reflective spectra of hypothetical […] Continue reading →

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The Orion Nebula

Posted on March 21, 2022 by AndreaS

If you have participated in observing for class, then you have seen through a telescope the Orion Nebula. Nebulae are star-forming regions that when studied can tell us lots about how stars and solar systems come to be, and the Orion Nebula is no different. When we look at the Orion Nebula through a telescope, […] Continue reading →

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The Martian: Based in Science or Fiction?

Posted on March 21, 2022 by timmyshaheen

The Martian originated as a book written by Andy Weir, then was adapted into a movie which was directed by Ridley Scott. The book and the movie prided themselves on being scientifically accurate. In fact, when Andy Weir was first writing the book, he published chapters on his blog, and adjusted them based on the […] Continue reading →

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The Formation of Nebulae

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Karan Bhardwaj

In discussing how planets and stars form, one will quickly find the nebular hypothesis — an idea that stars and the planets that orbit them were formed from clouds of gas called nebulae. But how was this nebula first formed, where did it come from, and what are the different types of nebulae? A nebula […] Continue reading →

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