Tag Archives: blog5

Naming Extrasolar Planets

Ever since we learned about the naming themes with the Jovian planets’ moons in class two weeks ago, I have been interested about how astronomers have managed to not run out of naming themes for the vast universe as they discover more worlds. I thought that the Jovian planets took up most of the cooler […] Continue reading

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It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s… Super Earth???

Image by NASA https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/eyes-on-exoplanets/#/planet/GJ_15_A_b/ Within our solar system, there are three main classes of planets: terrestrials, gas giants, and ice giants. These planet types are reflected throughout the universe, with NASA categorizing these similar planets as gas giants (or Jupiter-analogues), Neptune-likes, and terrestrials (or Earth-analogues). However, within the universe, NASA also recognizes and classifies exoplanets […] Continue reading

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Exoplanets!

Over the past several decades, the study of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, has been one of the most rapidly advancing fields of astronomy and even science in general. With huge leaps forward that have been made in both technology and methodology, the number of exoplanets astronomers have been able to directly observe has exploded, with […] Continue reading

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Bog 5 – Chelyabinsk Meteor

A relatively recent and frightening meteoric event occurred in the quaint city of Chelyabinsk in Russia on February 15, 2013. This incident is rather interesting since damage caused by the meteor was not due to impact, but rather violent shockwaves produced by the airborne-meteor’s explosion over the city. The explosion occurred when the meteor, roughly […] Continue reading

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Lightning on Jupiter

How fitting that mysterious lightning has been observed on the planet named after the god of sky and storms! Lightning on Jupiter has been reported multiple times over the years during multiple space missions: the 1979 Voyager mission, 1990s Galileo Jupiter mission, and again during the 2007 New Horizons mission. Now that we’ve got Juno […] Continue reading

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The Frozen World: Pluto

Pluto’s Icey Surface taken from the New Horizons Spacecraft Pluto is one of the most interesting “planets” in our solar system and for decades now has had constant debate surrounding it. Pluto has an extremely thin atmosphere, one that is a lot thinner than ours on earth that is made up of primarily nitrogen. Its […] Continue reading

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Blog #5: Pluto

The above photo was captured by the New Horizons Spacecraft and enhanced by NASA in 2015. Pluto is classified as a dwarf planet and is located in the Kuiper Belt in the far reaches of the Solar System. The average surface temperature on Pluto is around -233°C. This is because Pluto receives very little sunlight […] Continue reading

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Post 5

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) declared that Pluto was not a planet, but rather a dwarf planet. This was largely because Pluto is relatively small (smaller than our moon) and it belongs to the Kuiper Belt—a body of comets/large objects that orbit the sun on the outer edges of the solar system. This […] Continue reading

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Blog Post 5: Ultima Thule

Most people have New Years goals of going to the gym more or spending more time with their family. The New Horizons team had a New Years goal to capture a clear image of Ultima Thule, the furthest known Kuiper belt object at that time, on a New Years flyby. Most people will look at […] Continue reading

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Waterworlds Make Earth Look Dry

Image Source In a system 218 light years from Earth, scientists have discovered two planets, Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 d, which make Earth look like a desert in comparison. Both planets were initially thought by scientists to be rocky super-Earths. However, after closer examination by the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists were able to determine that […] Continue reading

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