Tag Archives: astro2110

Kepler-452b

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Owen Purcell

Kepler-452b is an exoplanet about 15 light-years away from us.  It is notable because it is the most Earth-like planet that has been discovered so far.  It is 60% larger than Earth, which is certainly significant, but it has an orbit that lasts 385 Earth-days, and it orbits only 5% further from its star than […] Continue reading →

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Sideways Wonder, Uranus

Posted on March 6, 2024 by obisesoa

Aside from being named after Jupiter’s progenitors rather than his offspring or contemporaries, Uranus has the obvious distinction from having its axis be almost horizontal, meaning it rotates on its side like a wheel rather than like a top, possibly due to a drastic collision it suffered while forming that it never bothered to correct. […] Continue reading →

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Combining Forces: Nuclear Fusion in the Solar System

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Seth Creech

Business Insider Ignition Image Shown above is from the National Ignition Facility, where scientists successfully produced (and reproduced) a nuclear fusion reaction that had more energy output than input. The underlying math behind this lies in E=mc2, which shows that Mass (m) can be converted into a large amount of energy at the sacrifice of […] Continue reading →

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Crazy Stars

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Jonas Kobza

Stars like our Sun are considered “ordinary” and quite common. They produce energy through hydrogen fusion. A weirder type of star is a white dwarf. These are stars that at one point produced energy through hydrogen fusion, but have run out of hydrogen, and do not have the mass to carry out fusion energy reactions […] Continue reading →

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Crazy Stars

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Jonas Kobza

Stars like our Sun are considered “ordinary” and quite common. They produce energy through hydrogen fusion. A weirder type of star is a white dwarf. These are stars that at one point produced energy through hydrogen fusion, but have run out of hydrogen, and do not have the mass to carry out fusion energy reactions […] Continue reading →

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So what is a Black Hole?

Posted on March 5, 2024 by The Cosmic Traveler

by me A black hole is an astronomical object in space where the gravitational pull is so strong that nothing can escape from it, including light. The “surface” of a black hole is known as the event horizon. Black holes are undetectable by telescopes because no light can escape from them; However, they can be […] Continue reading →

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Far Out, Man

Posted on March 5, 2024 by obisesoa

Telescopes laid the foundation for everything we know about space, but they can only get you so far. If you don’t particularly feel like removing the planet’s entire atmosphere to get a better view, spacecrafts do a pretty good job of getting a closer look. Flyby spacecraft are the simplest and least expensive; they can […] Continue reading →

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Blog Post #3

Posted on March 5, 2024 by Robert Navarro

The solar system began to form from a giant molecular cloud of gas and dust particles about 4.6 billion years ago. This cloud most likely experienced a shock wave from a nearby supernova, which could have made it collapse under its own gravity. It then began to spin and flatten into a disk shape due […] Continue reading →

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Blog 3- The Sun and its Core!

Posted on March 5, 2024 by Julian Delamaza

As I was growing up, I never truly understood what the sun exactly was. I had understood that it emitted light and eventually I learned that it was basically a big ball of really really REALLY hot gasses. However I never understood the intricacies behind the Sun’s structure. The most interesting part of the sun’s […] Continue reading →

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Understanding Auroras: The Physics of Earth’s Magnetic Light Shows

Posted on March 5, 2024 by Garrett

The Northern Lights The northern lights, or aurora borealis, is a display of natural light that occurs in the Earth’s sky. What you might not know is that there is another light show on Earth called aurora australis, which occurs in the southern hemisphere. So, what causes these natural and captivating lights? Solar winds are […] Continue reading →

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