Tag Archives: Time

The History and Future of the Universe: A Time Scale

If you’d like to feel the crushing weight of existential dread as we approach the end of this course, and for me, the end of my time at Vanderbilt, I have just the video for you! It’s a YouTube video called “Age of Universe: Time in Perspective,” and it uses a time-to-volume comparison in order […] Continue reading

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Blog 8 – The History of Venus

When asked to picture Venus, many of us picture a hot, volcanic, inhabitable place — and we would be correct. However, science suggests that it may not have always been this way. A study of five different climate simulations of Venus found that in each of these scenarios, the planet could have supported liquid water […] Continue reading

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The Cosmic Microwave Background

One of the pillars that the Big Bang Theory Model rests on is the existence and characteristics of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The CMB is an observed cosmic glow of radiation seen everywhere, filling the universe like a sea. Roughly 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe cooled enough (~3,000K) for free-roaming electrons […] Continue reading

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Time Dilation and the Theory of Relativity

With our totally unrestricted guidelines on Blog 4, I would like to make a bit of a deviation from the content of our course and discuss time dilation and the theory of relativity! When I first learned about time dilation, which refers to the difference in elapsed time as measured by different clocks due to […] Continue reading

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What will happen to our solar system when we collide with Andromeda?

You may be familiar with Andromeda, our closest neighboring galaxy. You may have also heard that Andromeda and our Milky Way are moving towards each other. But what will happen to Earth and the rest of our solar system when these two galaxies collide? Will Earth even still be around by then? The answer to […] Continue reading

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Post 2

Astronomy is a science. This means that in astronomy we make predictions, test hypotheses, and use findings to continuously build and refine our theories. Interestingly, astronomy was very likely the first science. Humans, ever since the ancient civilizations, have looked to the sky and pondered its mysteries. What use would such people have in astronomical […] Continue reading

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Ancient Egypt Switches from the 360 to 365-Day Year

The other day, my friend told me about an Ancient Egyptian myth regarding the switch from the 360 to the 365-day calendar in Egypt. At the time, I just thought it was a cool story, but later realized that it was a perfect example of archaeoastronomy. Before 4200 BCE, the Ancient Egyptian calendar year was […] Continue reading

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The Cosmic Calendar

The Cosmic Calendar is a visualization of the timeline of the Universe that was popularized by astrophysicist Carl Sagan. In this timeline, the entire history of the Universe is scaled down to the length of one Earth year. As you can see from the picture above, January 1st is marked by the Big Bang and […] Continue reading

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When the Sun Dies

All good things must come to an end, including the ancient (at least relative to humanity), life-giving star we see each day. Even though the sun is considered a young star, it still has a finite lifetime, and it will eventually “die” in about 5 billion years. The image above shows a rough timeline of […] Continue reading

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Warping the 4th Dimension

The concept of time dilation is one of the direct results of the theory of general relativity proposed by Albert Einstein, and it explains the effect of gravity on time. The theory of general relativity describes space as a three-dimensional space with time being the fourth dimension through which space is moving, creating the spacetime […] Continue reading

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