Tag Archives: space

Can you survive in space?

Posted on April 3, 2017 by brandonandthesolarsystem

For the astronaut shown above, he/she will be fine for now. As long as their space suit is intact, they should not be in any immediate danger of death. However, if their suit were to malfunction for some reason, what would happen next? This has been “explained” before in movies or television shows; but as we […] Continue reading →

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The Voyager Golden Record

Posted on March 29, 2017 by pkunetz97

  The Voyager Golden Record was a disc of sounds and images included with both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, both designed to study Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 went on to study Uranus and Neptune, and is the only spacecraft to have visited them. However, these spacecraft are still gathering and emitting data even […] Continue reading →

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Rogue Planets

Posted on February 14, 2017 by ksun1

All of the planets that we know and love in our solar system follow a pretty regular life. They spin about an axis, revolve around the central Sun, and go about their business in the small, but vast, family of the solar system. We are most familiar with “planets” as being what is similar to our […] Continue reading →

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New technologies in mapping space weather

Posted on February 14, 2017 by astromalhotra

One of the fundamental concepts in the study of astronomy is the dependency of Earth and every other planet in the solar system on the  characteristics of the Sun. From emissions of hot gas to violent space wind to bursts of extra energy (via solar flares), the behavior  of the Sun, dubbed as space weather, […] Continue reading →

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Gravity in Space?

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Matt Machado

Videos of astronauts floating around inside space shuttles have led many to believe that gravity does not exist in space. However, this is simply not true. While the force of gravity affects, for example, astronauts who are orbiting the Earth in the International Space Station differently than it affects us, it still exists in space, […] Continue reading →

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Gravity vs. Light

Posted on February 12, 2017 by ksun1

The light from a distant galaxy gets warped and distorted thanks to the immense gravity of the closer reddish-orange galaxy We usually think light is pretty fast. Usain Bolt can set new records for how quickly man can run. There are motorcycles that can travel faster than our own nerve impulses. Aircraft has long since broken the sound barrier. […] Continue reading →

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The Power of the Powers of Ten

Posted on February 5, 2017 by Matt Machado

The Powers of Ten is a 1977 short film that puts the immensity (and smallness) of the universe into perspective by zooming out from a couple’s picnic in Michigan at a distance of 1 meter to a vast view of galaxy clusters at a distance of 10^24 meters. By watching this journey from small to […] Continue reading →

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Bootstrapping Space Industry

Posted on April 27, 2016 by jgarrett9

In 2012, Philip Metzger and some of his colleagues from the Kennedy Space Center worked on a paper theorizing how we could “bootstrap” our way across the Solar System. The first step of their plan was to get materials to the Moon’s surface. From there, development of the industry would continue as the field of robotics has… Continue reading →

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Half Empty or Half Full?

Posted on April 24, 2016 by impossibleensign

Fermi’s paradox has some unsettling points depending on how you see the glass. Continue reading →

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The Largest Structure in the Universe

Posted on April 11, 2016 by clharrell

Through our studies of the solar system this semester, we have focused particularly on the scale of the universe. Throughout the cosmos, there are countless structures that are far more massive than any we perceive. Our galaxy is held together by gravity, forming a cluster. We can also observe clusters being held together by gravity […] Continue reading →

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