Category Archives: Class

Blog0 – About Me

Hi! My name is Mercedes. I am a transfer student new to Vanderbilt. I love to travel and explore. This picture is from when I lived in the PNW. My father is in the military (I personally do not recommend that path, but feel free to investigate your options here). His job has given me […] Continue reading

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Leo – Intro Post

Hello, my name is Leo Silva and I’m a senior here at Vanderbilt. I major in H&OD and minor in Astronomy (completely unrelated). For many years now I have loved the puzzling nature of learning about space, especially when it comes to pioneering studies of topics that could bring forth answers to some of our […] Continue reading

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For Fall 2024 Class

If you’re in my 2024 Solar System class, please put a comment here showing that you’ve found my blog and that you’re following it.  Please include your first name.  Note that you MUST be logged in to your own WordPress blog when commenting or else you’re doing it wrong! Also make sure you have bookmarked the […] Continue reading

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Culmination Blog

This will be my final blog for this course. I just want to say that I learned so much, and I am grateful for what I learned. My eyes have been opened up, and I learned so much information that I never knew. My favorite part of this course was the actual observing of celestial […] Continue reading

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Immortal Water Bears?

by Science News So what is a water bear and how is it immortal? Water bears, also known as Tardigrades, are eight-legged micro animals that can survive extreme conditions. Their size is typically 0.05mm-1.2mm. Water bears can survive in space, radioactive environments, near volcanoes, and even at the bottom of the ocean. Animals that can […] Continue reading

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We are Lucky

We should be grateful for our place in exploration. Sometimes I get sad, and mope around upset that I was born at the wrong time. The phrase goes something like “born too late to explore the Earth, too early to explore the stars.” And it is so easy to get caught up in it. But […] Continue reading

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Light Has Momentum?

How is that possible – And how can we take advantage? We know that light has no mass. And, according to classical mechanics, momentum is given by 1/2mv^2; in other words, according to classical mechanics, light cannot have momentum. But, as we know, light is different — and oh so interesting! By virtue of energy […] Continue reading

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Our Neighbor?: The Andromeda Galaxy

Image of the Andromeda Galaxy 1888 For this blog I wanted to talk about The Andromeda Galaxy. Other than it being the closest galaxy to our Milky Way I really didn’t know much about it. The Andromeda galaxy was first photographed in 1888 by Issac Roberts (picture above). Andromeda is located over 2 million light-years […] Continue reading

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Are We Living in a Black Hole???

While this question seems ridiculous, we shouldn’t dismiss the theory outright. Maybe there are lessons to be extracted out of this thought experiment. Or maybe our universe truly exists within a black hole. The theory is called Schwarzschild cosmology which posits that our universe lies within the black hold of a larger parent universe. The […] Continue reading

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Blog 8: Culmination of the Course

Picture: Potentially viable planets visualization ASTRO 2110 was my fourth astronomy class that I have taken here at Vanderbilt, and it was also one of my favorites. Astronomy is seen by many as interesting but irrelevant, so it was nice getting a deeper understanding of the most relevant parts of the universe to us by […] Continue reading

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