Tag Archives: Time

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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Historical Astronomers in Context: Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler Born: December 27, 1571 Died: November 15, 1630 Important Contributions: Johannes Kepler and his discoveries were integral to understanding planetary motion in our solar system. Other than his three laws, Kepler was actually the first person to publish work defending Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the solar system. Copernicus did propose a heliocentric theory […] Continue reading

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Blog 1: The Mystery of the Light-Year

People often confuse a light-year for a measure of time instead of a measure of distance. This is understandable since it has “year” in the name. A light-year is NOT a measure of time. The true definition of a light-year can be easily understood with a few simple facts and calculations. First, light travels at […] Continue reading

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The speed of light and what it means for the Earth-Sun system.

The speed of light is one of the most important laws (or principles) in our Universe. The speed of light determines what we see and when we see it, as well as providing a universal “speed-limit” for countless celestial objects that zoom throughout the universe. I find it illuminating to consider the speed of light […] Continue reading

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The Scale of the Universe (Post 1)

The universe is so massive that it can be difficult for humans to comprehend its scale, so I will break it down using something that we can easily understand. Earth is 1 AU (astronomical unit) from the sun or 150 million KM. If a human were travelling this distance in a car at 100 miles […] Continue reading

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blog post 01

Solstices and Equinoxes The winter/summer solstices are, respectively, the shortest and longest periods of sunlight during the calendar year. The vernal/autumnal equinoxes are days in which the amount of time the day has with sunlight and without are of equal length. Days that are solstices/equinoxes demonstrate the formal change in seasons. This occurs because the […] Continue reading

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Cosmic Calendar Explained

Birthday’s are one of the most significant days for humans, it signifies the day that we’re born, and became really apart of the universe. But do we know the universe’s birthday? when was the universe created? to answer that question astrophysicists have been able to figure out that the age of the universe since the […] Continue reading

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NASA’s Picture of the Day

For the class Astronomical Experiences assignment, I was going to write about NASA’s May 3rd, 2021 Astronomy Picture of the Day. As I went to search for the daily image, I also found a PBS Nova video on the Mars mission involving Perseverance and I was hooked. Now that I can blog about anything forContinue reading “NASA’s Picture of the Day” Continue reading

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