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Tag Archives: blog7
Newly Discovered Dwarf Planet
This month, scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science discovered a distant dwarf planet. Labeled 2012 VP113, this dwarf planet was seen spinning way past the orbit of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt and is 80 AU away from the sun at its closest point. The Kuiper belt, a region of rocky entities, is between… Continue reading
Edmond Halley: Proving Newton
Newton was the first to provide a mathematical construct to describe the effects of planetary motion around the Sun. But then the question arose, how could we find evidence for the theory? Stepping up to the plate was the prominent astronomer Edmond Halley. Born in the English countryside on November 8, 1656, Halley was a … Continue reading Edmond Halley: Proving Newton → Continue reading
Halley’s Comet Shooting Through the Sky
In 1705, Edmond Halley noticed records of comets passing by Earth in 1531, 1607, and 1682. While at first they were thought to be three different comets, Halley thought they were all the same one. The comet passes by Earth around every 75 years. It was here last in 1986, and is predicted to come […] Continue reading
Posted in Observables, Science
Tagged astro201, blog7, comet, Halley's Comet, Time
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Terrific Titan
NASA Titan, Saturn’s largest moon (and second largest in the solar system), is a really cool world. Like Earth, it has a thick atmosphere, making it the only moon in our solar system to have one. Also, like Earth, Titan’s atmosphere is mostly composed of nitrogen, and has a presence of organic molecules that contain […] Continue reading
New Way to Study Asteroids
NASA and the White House just announced the space agency’s budget for the 2014 fiscal year. Included in that budget is a $100 million dollar project to retrieve and research […] Continue reading
Posted in Small SS Objects
Tagged asteroid, astro201, blog7, NASA
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The Galilean Moons
The Galilean moons of Jupiter are in order of distance Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. They are the four largest and most prominent of the 67 moons orbiting Jupiter, these four moons are some of the largest moons in the solar system–Callisto and Ganymede are even larger than Mercury, while Io and Europa are smaller […] Continue reading
Stories about Europa
Among four Galilean moons, my favorite one is Europa. Known as the water world, Europa has huge abundance of liquid water beneath its icy surface. Let’s take a closer look of how this extrapolation of liquid water on Europa. Water is suspected to be the agency that erases Europa’s relatively young surface. The double-ridges on […] Continue reading
Transiting Exoplanets: The Search for Terrestrial Worlds
On Monday, NASA announced a new project scheduled to launch in 2017: the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). This project was selected after a three-year competition, and will use surveys covering 400 times as much sky as any past missions to discover transiting exoplanets. This struck me as particularly significant having just studied methods of […] Continue reading
Posted in Exoplanets, Stars
Tagged astro201, blog7, technology, TESS
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And Then There were 8
Bye pluto We all learned the acronym back in elementary school: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. Now the joke going around is that we have to learn My Very Evil Mother Just Served Us Nothing. Not only is Pluto killing our childhood knowledge, it’s also being mean to moms! So the … Continue reading » Continue reading
It’s OK, Pluto, You’re Not Alone!
A lot of Pluto fans were really upset with Pluto’s demotion from planet to “dwarf planet” back in 2006. I mean what’s not to love about a tiny iceball on the edge of the Kuiper Belt? There is good news though. Despite Pluto’s lowly new title, at least it has some company. The IAU recognizes […] Continue reading
Posted in Dwarf Planets
Tagged astro201, blog7, pluto
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