Tag Archives: blog7

Charon: The Major Key to Pluto

Posted on April 7, 2016 by Sofia

Up until very recently, Pluto was considered the ninth planet of our solar system. That all changed when the definition of a planet was revised, and Pluto just became another Kuiper belt object albeit the most famous one. We know significantly more about Pluto than any other Kuiper belt object simply because it was discovered … Continue reading “Charon: The Major Key to Pluto” Continue reading →

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Io

Posted on April 7, 2016 by lawlorsolarsystem

Io is Jupiter’s third largest moon. What is notable about Io is that it is the most geologically active body in the entire Solar System. It is extremely volcanic, and is the only body other than Earth that we  have observed with active volcanism. The volcanic activity occurs because Io is greatly affected by tides […] Continue reading →

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The Dwarf Planet Sedna

Posted on April 7, 2016 by Chloe

According to Inuit mythology, Sedna was the name of a mortal woman who became a goddess of the ocean and the underworld. One version of the myth holds that Sedna was a young woman who consented to marry a hunter, only to find, once she had left home with him, that he was in fact […] Continue reading →

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Rocky Planets Shouldn’t Get This Big…

Posted on April 6, 2016 by andyastronomer

Planetary formation theorists are scratching their heads at the recent discovery of the largest rocky world found to date – BD+20594b. This exoplanet is a rocky world with a diameter half that of Neptune. With a planet that size, one may think that we were talking about a gas giant, but we’re not. According to our present […] Continue reading →

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Pluto’s Heart

Posted on April 6, 2016 by clharrell

The Tombaugh Regio, nicknamed “Pluto’s Heart” (pictured above), is one of the most extensively studied features of the dwarf planet. Thanks to NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, we can get a closer glimpse into the heart-shaped bright spot on Pluto’s surface. More recently, New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern has theorized that Tombaugh Regio is the result of […] Continue reading →

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The Possibility of Life on Enceladus

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Michaela Thomas

One question that still excites both amateur and professional astronomers is the possibility of life on other worlds. Certain important elements, however, must be present in order for organic life to exist. Enceladus, one of Saturn’s icy moons, has an underground ocean that may be a source of life, either sometime in the ancient past …

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The Possibility of Life on Enceladus

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Michaela Thomas

One question that still excites both amateur and professional astronomers is the possibility of life on other worlds. Certain important elements, however, must be present in order for organic life to exist. Enceladus, one of Saturn’s icy moons, has an underground ocean that may be a source of life, either sometime in the ancient past […] Continue reading →

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The Solar Shepherds

Posted on April 4, 2016 by evinske

Rings. It’s what many senior girls are looking for right now, just as graduation approaches. Spring brings the rings, right? The giant planets, however, sport perhaps the most breathtaking rings of all. What many won’t notice about rings of giant planets, such as Saturn, are its imperfections. The darker regions of the rings do not […] Continue reading →

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Extrasolar = ExtraSPECIAL?

Posted on April 4, 2016 by paxtonastronomy

By far, the coolest thing there is about extrasolar planets is the possibility of discovering another Earth. Of course, this is merely an opinion of my own, but I’d like to think that a lot of people agree. Statistically speaking, it is not only possible but also extremely probably that there is another Earth in […] Continue reading →

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7 Things You Should Know About the Kuiper Belt

Posted on March 31, 2016 by HB

1. The Kuiper Belt is an elliptical band of objects beyond Neptune’s orbit extending from 30 to 55 AU. It is similar to the asteroid belt except the objects in the Kuiper Belt are made more from ice than rock. Pluto is a part of the Kuiper Belt and comets can be found there as … Continue reading 7 Things You Should Know About the Kuiper Belt → Continue reading →

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