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Tag Archives: blog7
Jupiter’s volcanic moon: Io
Io sports a surface temperature well below zero (around -130 degrees C). This is heavily contrasted by the fact that Io is also the most volcanically active body in our solar system. It is known to have over 400 currently active volcanoes. If you weren’t yet convinced about the effects of tidal heating, think about […]
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Put a Ring on It
An interesting characteristic that all the jovian planets possess is their rings. The most remarkable and noticeable of these are Saturn’s, which extend hundreds of thousands of kilometers wide. However, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune all have rings as well, on a much smaller scale. Although the rings are rather wide, they are only 1-1000 m… Continue reading Put a Ring on It
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Posted in Jovians, Planet Rings
Tagged astro201, blog7, rings, Solar System
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Io’s crazy volcanoes!
photo from space.com So, we all know that Io is notoriously the volcanic moon of Jupiter, but apparently a couple of years ago it randomly got…MORE volcanic? According to this article, in August of 2013 three large eruptions occurred on Io. To put it in perspective, this is the number of large eruptions that we […]
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Halley’s Comet
Halley’s comet is a short-period comet, which can be seen from Earth every 75-76 years so that a person could see it at most twice during his or her lifetime. It is undoubtedly the most famous comet. The last time it returned was in 1986, and it will be back in 2061 as predicted. Halley’s…
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New Horizons
Exploring Pluto Pluto, the small icy body at the edge of our planetary system, has been under scrutiny in scientific …
Posted in Dwarf Planets, Instruments
Tagged astro201, blog7, exploration, NASA, new horizons, pluto, sensors, technology
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Orbital Resonances: They Space Out the Solar System
In class we learned that the divisions in Saturn’s rings are caused by orbital resonance. Orbital resonance is a phenomenon in which “two orbiting bodies exert a regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other,” usually because their orbital periods “match up”. For instance, if particles were in Saturn’s Cassini division, they would orbit twice for … Continue reading Orbital Resonances: They Space Out the Solar System →
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Tagged astr201, blog7, orbitalresonance
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Orbital Resonances: They Space Out the Solar System
In class we learned that the divisions in Saturn’s rings are caused by orbital resonance. Orbital resonance is a phenomenon in which “two orbiting bodies exert a regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other,” usually because their orbital periods “match up”. For instance, if particles were in Saturn’s Cassini division, they would orbit twice for … Continue reading Orbital Resonances: They Space Out the Solar System → Continue reading
Posted in Class
Tagged astr201, blog7, orbitalresonance
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Pluto: Why isn’t it a planet?
Hey Followers! Today, I’m going to be discussing some basic characteristics of the now dwarf planet Pluto. Pluto is the largest object in the Kuiper belt. It is approximately 30-49 AU from the Sun depending on its position in its elliptical orbit (this variance also indicates a high eccentricity in its orbit). An interesting phenomenon […]
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The Earth With No Moon
This video, though it is 8 minutes, is fascinating. Its main focus is what the Earth would be like without the Moon. The most surprising thing I got from this was that humans would probably not exist because they would not be able to withstand the extreme conditions that the Earth would experience without the…
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The Discovery of Neptune
The history of the discovery of Neptune was rather dramatic. Neptune is sooooo far away from Earth so it is almost impossible to see it with naked eye, even with low-power telescope. On Dec. 28th, 1612 Galileo became the first one who found Neptune and actually described his discovery in his research draft. However, at … Continue reading The Discovery of Neptune →
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