Tag Archives: planets

Walking on the Giant Planets

In class, we have been learning a lot about the different kinds of planets and what makes them have their unique characteristics. But did you know that if possible to send people to the Giant Planets, you would not be able to walk on them? One of the characteristics of the Giant Planets is that […] Continue reading

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Life On? Venus

Venus is known as Earth’s sister planet due to their similar sizes and structures, but Venus is a very different world than what we know on Earth. As NASA notes, if you were to slice both Venus and Earth down the middle, their interiors would be very similar, but their surfaces are much different. One […] Continue reading

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 New Horizons: Exploring Pluto and Beyond

Hello (again), and welcome (back) to my Astronomy Blog! Today we’re picking up where we left off with Pluto and the New Horizons mission.  The New Horizons Mission Although NASA approved the mission in 2001, the New Horizons mission officially entered the public conscience when the craft was launched on January 19th, 2006. The speedy […] Continue reading

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Blog Post 6: Gravitational Slingshot

Have you ever played with a slingshot to shoot small items such as pebbles as a kid? Astronomers can also tap into their inner child by using a gravitational slingshot in space. A gravitational slingshot happens when a small object uses the gravitational pull of a larger object to speed itself up. Take a spacecraft […] 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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The Planets Inspiring Art

Planets have always been a large source of inspiration for classical music composers, and there is probably no larger example than Gustav Holst’s Planets Suite. This work’s popularity has also reached the masses, and his music is known to have significantly influenced John Williams in his compositions for his film scores. What I find interesting […] Continue reading

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The Diversity of Terrestrial World Atmospheres: Venus, Mars and Earth

Terrestrial planets’ atmospheres, including those of Venus, Earth, and Mars, are crucial to their general behavior and possible habitability. Many elements, including the planet’s distance from the sun, the makeup of its surface, and the presence of geological activity, all impact these atmospheres. The atmospheres of terrestrial worlds display a startling variation in behavior and […] Continue reading

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The Imaginary Planet

While the five planets visible to the naked eye have been known for almost all of astronomy’s history, it was not until the discovery of Uranus in 1781 by Sir William Herschel that astronomers began searching for other planets in our Solar System. After Neptune was discovered in 1846, astronomers began turning their telescopes towards […] Continue reading

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Acidophiles, pH, and life on Venus | blog VII

The pH scale is used to gauge the acidity and ranges from 0-14, with lower values being more acidic and higher values being more alkali. 7 is the neutral level between the two. Substances like battery or stomach acids have pHs around 0 or 1; water and blood are around 7, with drain cleaner or […] Continue reading

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Detecting Extrasolar Planets

Extrasolar planets can be difficult to detect because they are tiny, far away, and dim, but the Doppler Method provides an indirect way to find them. This method involves looking for alternating blueshifts and redshifts in the star’s spectrum, which reveal a star’s motion around its center of mass. This motion could reveal the presence […] Continue reading

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