Tag Archives: Solar System

Identity Crisis

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Gabi Grys

I have, apparently, been living a lie. My entire life, I thought I was an Aquarius, yet I have recently come to learn that my astronomical Sun sign is off by nearly a month. Because of the phenomenon of precession (the work of the gravitational pull and the conservation of angular momentum to correct the […] Continue reading →

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Eclipses Throughout History

Posted on January 26, 2016 by astr2110geoffren

Eclipse science! You’re just mowing grass one day and the sun disappears. You look up and see an eclipse. Today, people would just brush it off for the most part. There would be some oohs and ahhs, but most people would just treat it like any other day and probably forget about the occurrence a […] Continue reading →

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Human’s Fascination of the Solstices

Posted on January 26, 2016 by 2016spaceodyssey

If there was one thing that early humans revered most, it may have been the position of the Sun.  Ancient cultures around the world, before the first cities ever existed, built monuments to measure the Sun’s position (known as archaeoastronomy).  The most famous of which is Stonehenge in England, which has its entrances aligned to […] Continue reading →

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The Universe Online

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Sofia

This class and lab last semester have taught me how easy it is to examine the sky above us. Previously, I had always thought that learning about space would necessitate daunting instruments and advanced calculations, but technology has allowed normal people to examine the great expanse of space.   Stellarium is by far my favorite … Continue reading “The Universe Online” Continue reading →

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Precession of Earth

Posted on January 25, 2016 by sarabkeller

I think one of the most interesting topics in Chapter 2 of the Astronomy textbook is about the concept of precession, or the gradual change in the rotational axis of Earth. The direction of Earth’s axis rotates on a 26,000 year cycle. That may mean next to nothing to us in our lifespan, but precession will gradually […] Continue reading →

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The Cosmic Calendar

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Sofia

We, as humans, can have difficulty understanding amounts that exceed our narrow perspective. To aid us in understanding the 14 billion years that the universe has existed and the minuscule amount of time humans have inhabited it, scientists have put it in our terms of one year. Each month of the “cosmic calendar” represents roughly 1 … Continue reading “The Cosmic Calendar” Continue reading →

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The Great Shift

Posted on January 25, 2016 by alecsolarsystem

The Earth is like the top from Inception. As it spins around at very high speeds it wobbles or “precesses” back and forth as the force of gravity from the Moon and Sun tug it from different directions, but it will never fall over. This movement, although much slower and less noticeable than the Earth’s […] Continue reading →

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The best way to propose to an astronomer: Solar eclipses

Posted on January 23, 2016 by d51blog

  A solar eclipse, which is the only acceptable way to propose to an astronomer, is a fairly uncommon event which occurs when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun. Although the Moon is much smaller than the Sun, it is able to completely block the Sun because it is much closer to the […] Continue reading →

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The Cosmic Calendar

Posted on January 20, 2016 by alecsolarsystem

The Cosmic Calendar is truly an eye-opening visualization of the entire age of our universe. It shrinks the entire 13.8 billion years that the universe has been around into one calendar year where each second equates to a few hundred years. The birth of the human species and just how little we have been around compared […] Continue reading →

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The Lunar Cycle

Posted on January 20, 2016 by hallesolar

The moon completes it orbit around Earth every 29.5 days, creating the lunar cycle. The most interesting thing I learned from the Chapter 2 reading was that the word “month” is meant to sound like “moon” – I’m surprised I never knew the origin of the word before! As the moon orbits Earth, we are able […] Continue reading →

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