Tag Archives: blog4

The Search for Life and the (Not So) Habitable Zone

The question of other life in the Universe is one that has long plagued scientists and astronomers. The pure size of it makes it supposedly statistically probable that if life can happen on Earth, then it can (and probably does/has) happen elsewhere. Because the only type of life that we know is our own, scientists […] Continue reading

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The Continual Search for Planets

The discovery of new life-harboring planets has been a hot topic in the last century, but there has always been a limitation: we couldn’t see other planets. However, observational technologies and techniques have progressed to the point where we may be able to find more Earth-like planets within a few short years. The main problems […] Continue reading

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Was Life on Earth Planted by Aliens?!?!

Scientists in the United Kingdom have discovered something astonishing: a tiny, metal globular object the width of a human hair captured by a team of researchers using a high-flying balloon in Earth’s stratosphere. According to University of Buckingham’s astrobiologist Milton Wainwright, the globular object “has filamentous life on the outside and a gooey biological material […] Continue reading

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The Great Filter

When you think of the size of the universe, there must be life elsewhere. There are 100 – 400 billion stars just in our galaxy, and just as many galaxies in the universe. If we estimate that 5% of all stars are sun-like, which is on the low side. There should be 500 quintillion sun-like […] Continue reading

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ESA’s Rosetta Mission

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta mission is probably fresh in a lot of your minds as it came to fruition in November of last year. For those unaware, the Rosetta space probe is the first probe to orbit a comet – the Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The probe also came equipped with a lander, which touched down shortly […] Continue reading

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Earth-Like Planets?

There was a journal article released last week from the Australian National University with the title, “Scientists Predict Earth-Like Planets around Most Stars”. To summarize, using the idea of the “Goldilocks zone” (the distance from a star where liquid water can exist) and applying it to the exoplanets discovered by the Kepler telescope, astronomers have […] Continue reading

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Hubble’s Law

Photo Source: Hubble’s Law Considering the topic of what light can tell us, Hubble’s Law is one topic I’ve always found greatly interesting.  As the picture suggests, the redshift of a distant galaxy is in direct linear proportion to its distance from Earth.  This is the essence of Hubble’s Law – which relates a galaxy’s… Continue reading

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What if Earth is the Center of Our Solar System? (Part 1)

From the time of ancient Greece, people were convinced that Earth was the center of the universe. The theory of geocentric was still believed by public and authorities until the time of Renaissance. However, what if Earth suddenly becomes the center of our solar system? We can consider what will happen if the geocentric really … Continue reading What if Earth is the Center of Our Solar System? (Part 1) Continue reading

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Time to Understand the Tides

Even though I am from Colorado, I have to admit that I am more of a beach person than a mountain person, and a fascination with the tides has always been inherent in my love for the beach. However, until reading Chapter 4 of the textbook, I had never understood exactly why or how the […] Continue reading

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Think Saturn’s rings are cool? Think Bigger.

Saturn’s rings are large, 175,000 miles across large, but as the old adage goes-bigger is better. Scientists looking at exoplanets have discovered a planet with rings 200 times larger than that of Saturn’s. The planet itself, known as J1407b, is … Continue reading Continue reading

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