Tag Archives: blog7

Uranus

Posted on April 10, 2016 by imanig625

Uranus the most mysterious of the gas giants, in its form, orbit, and rotation. It is a widely known fact that Uranus rotates on its side, but its strange tilt also means that its magnetic field is skewed, so that its magnetic north and south are vastly different than its polar. In addition, the storms… Continue reading →

Posted in Class, Space Travel | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Uranus

Comets and stuff

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Alex Pratte

For blog 7 I’ve decided to write about comets. Comets, according to space.com is “an icy body that releases gas or dust”(space.com) Astronomers believe that comets are leftovers of the gas, dust, ice, and rocks that originally formed our solar system. It is believed that comets carried some of the water and organic molecules that […] Continue reading →

Posted in Small SS Objects | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Comets and stuff

Stop! In the Name of…

Posted on April 10, 2016 by impossibleensign

Gravity? What causes Hot Jupiters to not be eaten by their parent stars? Continue reading →

Posted in Jovians, Science | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Stop! In the Name of…

Extrasolar planets

Posted on April 10, 2016 by siyuan2016

image source In the class, we learn about the astrometric technique, Doppler technique and direct imaging used to detect extrasolar planets. And in this blog, I’d like to introduce some other planet-hunting strategies that have proved to be applicable. The first method is called gravitational microlensing. A gravitational microlensing occurs only when two stars are […] Continue reading →

Posted in Class | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Extrasolar planets

Extrasolar planets

Posted on April 10, 2016 by siyuan2016

image source In the class, we learn about the astrometric technique, Doppler technique and direct imaging used to detect extrasolar planets. And in this blog, I’d like to introduce some other planet-hunting strategies that have proved to be applicable. The first method is called gravitational microlensing. A gravitational microlensing occurs only when two stars are […] Continue reading →

Posted in Class | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Extrasolar planets

Halley’s Comet

Posted on April 10, 2016 by martisnv

Halley’s Comet is visible from Earth every 75-76 years. It is the only known short-period comet (a comet that has an orbital period of less than 200 years) that is visible to the naked eye. Halley most recently visited the inner parts … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Class, Small SS Objects, SolarSystem | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Halley’s Comet

Pluto – A Dwarf Planet

Posted on April 10, 2016 by podolakvandysolarsystem

Pluto is a Dwarf planet in the ring of objects beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. Similar to other objects in the Kuiper Belt, Pluto is composed of rock and ice. Its orbital period is 248 Earth years, and has an inclined orbital path compared to all the planets whose paths lie in the ecliptic […] Continue reading →

Posted in Class | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Pluto – A Dwarf Planet

Creation of the Kuiper Belt

Posted on April 9, 2016 by OscarBen

Recently in class we’ve been talking about the outer portion of our Solar System. Beyond Neptune lies the Kuiper Belt, the disc-shaped region that begins at about 30 AUs and ends around 55 AUs. The Kuiper Belt is home to hundreds of thousands of icy bodies, an estimated trillion or more comets, and Pluto, according to… More Creation of the Kuiper Belt Continue reading →

Posted in Observables | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Creation of the Kuiper Belt

Volcanic Io

Posted on April 9, 2016 by lindseynestor

Volcanoes are one of the coolest geographical features of Earth (in my opinion), but volcanoes outside of our world are even cooler. Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active world in our solar system – in other words, it is FULL of volcanic awesome-ness. Io’s volcanic activity produces HUGE volcanic plumes. To give some […] Continue reading →

Posted in Moons, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Volcanic Io

A Dance to Remember

Posted on April 8, 2016 by Ahmed A

Twice now our class has been introduced to the Kepler Orrery IV model, and both times the question of why our solar system seems to be such an oddball has crossed my mind. Based on the Kepler Orrery IV model, planets much larger than Earth should  be orbiting closer than the orbit of Mercury. So […] Continue reading →

Posted in Class | Tagged , , | Comments Off on A Dance to Remember