Tag Archives: blog4

Chemical Composition of Exoplanet Atmospheres

One goal of studying exoplanet atmospheres is to understand its composition and temperature. Specifically, we want to be able to recognize planets that could potentially have atmospheres most similar to Earth’s (with water vapor, oxygen, ozone, and carbon dioxide) – with the main objective being to find planets with strong water features that could support … Continue reading Chemical Composition of Exoplanet Atmospheres Continue reading

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Cars and the Greenhouse Effect

Earth experiences a warming through the greenhouse effect: the absorption and re-emission of light from the planet’s surface by compounds in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide and water. Greenhouse gases are necessary for keeping life on Earth warm enough to survive, but an increase in their concentration has led to a undesirable heating of … Continue reading Cars and the Greenhouse Effect Continue reading

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Where is the Center of the Universe?

If you asked the ancient philosophers, they would have told you that Earth was the center of the universe. Perfectly stationary, the heavenly spheres revolved around Earth causing the celestial phenomenons we Earth dwellers witness each day and night. Modern science has debunked, rather profusely, the idea of geocentrism. Now, we can easily leave our … Continue reading Where is the Center of the Universe? Continue reading

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You Honestly Believe We Live On A Ball?

The Earth is flat, and if you disagree you are blinded by science… In this blog post I’m going to unpack some of the most convincing arguments for a flat Earth, and provide a hopefully reasonable scientific response to these questions. Look with your own eyes, look off into the horizon, if the earth is … Continue reading You Honestly Believe We Live On A Ball? Continue reading

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History of Constellations

Long before history has been recorded, humans have studied the stars in the night sky. Although we have looked at stars for thousands of years, it wasn’t until 1930 that the 88 constellations were officially named by the International Astronomical Union. 48 of these constellations were named by Ptolemy in his book The Almagest in … Continue reading History of Constellations Continue reading

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Gravity Waves

Venus is the unfortunate victim of a runaway greenhouse effect. Not only does this make the planet uninhabitable, it also causes a tremendous degree of difficulty in observing the planet’s surface. However, there are many interesting things to gain from Venus by just looking at the atmosphere, including a massive gravity wave. Gravity waves in … Continue reading Gravity Waves Continue reading

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The Age of a Rock

In the grand scheme of things, one can forget about how everything little thing that exists in our Universe has an age. While we consistently talk about planets and stars having ages of billions of years, we sometimes forget to think about not only how the rocks and geographical formations on Earth are formed but … Continue reading The Age of a Rock Continue reading

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Songs of Space

Recently I’ve been collecting space-themed songs (for a McTyeire Hall event called the Galaxy Gala!), and then I thought of something I’ve heard of before: sounds coming from space! Because space is a vacuum, sound waves cannot travel through it. However, many objects within the Solar System do emit radio waves, and NASA scientists have […] Continue reading

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NASA’s Mars 2020 Mission

In 2020, sometime from July 17th to August 5th during the rover’s launch window, NASA will send a rover to Mars to try to answer a question being asked for over a century: was there life on Mars? The objective of the Mars 2020 Mission is to search for signs of previous microbial life as … Continue reading NASA’s Mars 2020 Mission Continue reading

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How to Find Orion in the Night Sky

One of the most famous and recognizable constellations, Orion is most visible in the evening sky, winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It was named after a hunter in Greek Mythology, Orion. Rigel, a blue-white supergiant, and Betelgeuse, a red supergiant, are the brightest stars in Orion. Thousands of newly formed stars can be found in … Continue reading How to Find Orion in the Night Sky Continue reading

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