Category Archives: SolarSystem

Tidal Forces

Posted on February 15, 2016 by lindseynestor

As a person that has always been happiest by the ocean, I really enjoyed learning about tides and decided to do some further research into other effects and instances of tidal forces in our solar system. Just as the Moon causes tides on the Earth, Earth creates tidal forces acting on the Moon. This is […] Continue reading →

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Planet IX

Posted on February 15, 2016 by lawlorsolarsystem

I have been fascinated by the possibility of a new ninth planet ever since I heard about it, so I thought I would use this blog to share some information on it. First, the discovery of it came, in many ways, from Pluto itself. Once astronomers discovered that there were other objects like Pluto (Kuiper […] Continue reading →

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Celestial NASCAR: Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion

Posted on February 15, 2016 by d51blog

Before 1609, the scientific consensus in Europe was that the planets orbited the Earth in perfect circles; even dissenting views such as Copernican heliocentricism relied upon perfect circles to guide objects around the Sun. Johannes Kepler, however, motivated by minute errors in planetary distances discovered when attempting to construct Copernicus’ model, revolutionized astronomy with his laws of […] Continue reading →

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The Gravity Slingshot

Posted on February 15, 2016 by martisnv

Recently we discussed a maneuver called the gravity assist. NASA uses this technique frequently, most notably with the Voyager probe during flybys of Jupiter and Saturn. In simplest terms, a gravity assist changes a spacecraft’s velocity by going through a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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The Tidal Forces

Posted on February 14, 2016 by alecsolarsystem

Tides are a well known and commonly occurring natural phenomenon that most people have witnessed. While many people just accept tides and don’t really think much about them, they are prime examples of how much of an impact other objects in our Solar System have on seemingly normal occurrences. The tides on a beach like […] Continue reading →

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The Sun and the Missing Neutrinos

Posted on February 13, 2016 by solarsystemjoe

First of all, what is a neutrino?  It’s an elementary particle, like an electron or a photon, but it hardly interacts with matter.  In fact, billions of neutrinos pass through you every second, but you don’t feel them.  This characteristic makes them hard to detect.  It’s no wonder that, in recent history, scientists thought some […] Continue reading →

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Growing up on the Moon

Posted on February 10, 2016 by jasperluastronomy

We talked a bit in class on Tuesday about what would happen to someone’s body if he were to spend too long in space. His bones would start deteriorating, his muscles would get weaker, and his body would produce less blood as he adjusts to zero G. I was reminded while we were talking about […] Continue reading →

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Johannes Kepler in Context

Posted on February 9, 2016 by annamcc9

Johannes Kepler (December 27, 1571 – 1630) was important to astronomy because he developed three laws of Planetary Motion. They were a result of analyzing observations made by Tycho Brahe concerning the orbit of Mars. The laws are: Planets move in ellipses with the Sun at one focus, the radius vector describes equal areas in […] Continue reading →

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It’s kind of in the name

Posted on January 27, 2016 by philhawkins221

captain’s blog, Stardate 69536.8 you, potentially: “wait Phil, isn’t the Stardate of blog post 2 is pretty close to the Stardate of blog post 1?” me: “Shhhhhhhhh.” This last week we looked deeply into the movement of the sun throughout the year. Without discussing it, we were inherently learning about solstices and equinoxes, a topic […] Continue reading →

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The Zodiac Signs

Posted on January 26, 2016 by imanig625

Image link The zodiac signs surround a lot of peoples’ daily lives, in that most people look to a horoscope to direct their lives. The fact that the position of the stars at a certain time can tell so much about a person’s individual personality is absurd, yet we attribute personality traits to the constellations.… Continue reading →

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