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Tag Archives: blog7
Jupiter’s Less Popular Moons
Io, Europa, Ganymede and Castillo get a lot of love, but the 63 other members of Jupiter’s posse are often overlooked. This NASA webpage provides in-depth information about each of Jupiter’s 67 moons. 50 of them are official moons and have names to reflect that status. However, the other 17 are mere “Provisional Moons,” which […]
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The Hunt for Extrasolar Planets
The Hunt for Extrasolar Planets 2098 extrasolar planets have been discovered starting in 1988. Extrasolar planets are planets that exist on stars other than the sun. Because these are relatively small and dark object that orbit much larger bright objects so very far way they can be very difficult to find. Astronomers can discover them […]
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Posted in Class
Tagged astro2110, blog7, Extrasolar Planets
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NASA’s Exploration of Pluto!
Hello everyone! Some exciting new has been happening in the astronomy world. NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is launching a space mission to the dwarf planet Pluto, a feat that has never been accomplished before! This is super exciting because this mission will potentially give us a much clearer idea of what is happening…
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If Earth had Rings
One of the most distinctive astronomical features of our solar system is the brilliant ring system of Saturn. Due to their position, scale and material composition, Saturn’s rings have a visibility and tone not present in the ring systems of other planets. I wondered what it would look like if earth had rings and what […]
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Posted in Jovians, Planet Rings, Terrestrials
Tagged astro201, blog7, rings
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Armageddon: The End or a New Beginning?
Armageddon is a word that generally refers to an end-of-the-world scenario. One of the more common ideas, in regards to Armageddon, is that our end shall come at the hands of an impact from a near-Earth object (comets, asteroids, meteorites) that will create such a disturbance from not only the energy released from the initial impact, but also the […]
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Io being squeezed
We all know that Jupiter exerts tremendous tidal squeezing on Io, but we need images to truly grasp the magnitude of this force. This image shows Io spewing a 200 mile high volcanic plume! For reference, that is greater than the distance from Nashville to Knoxville! It is baffling to think that tidal squeezing alone […]
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An End to the Discovery of Bright Kuiper Belt Objects?
Check out this image from Universe Today: This shows the largest known objects in the Kuiper Belt. Pretty interesting to …
Posted in Class, Dwarf Planets, Universe
Tagged astro201, blog7, kuiperbelt
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The Search for Extrasolar Planets
Extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, lie outside our solar system. We have so far discovered nearly 2000 exoplanets, most of which are Jovian planets like Jupiter. However in 2009, a possibly Earth like planet was discovered: Gliese 581d had the potential to support liquid water on its possibly rocky surface. It has a mass of around […]
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Posted in Exoplanets, Instruments
Tagged astro201, blog7, Gliese 581d, search techniques
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Exoplanet in Four Star System
Source: Discovery News Astronomers recently discovered the second exoplanet known to be part of a four star system. To find a planet in such a system is rare because the gravitational interaction between the stars are likely to remove planets from any sort of stable orbit. Four star systems are fairly rare themselves, making up […]
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Planet Discovered with Four Parent Stars
Binary star systems, like the one featured in the Tatooine system of Star Wars are common in the universe with half of all systems being comprised that way. Ternary system, or systems with three stars, are more rare, and even more rare are quaternion systems. Planets within these four star systems are also rare, so much so […]
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