Author: Leni Ertel
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Blog 8 – Beyond Saturn
There is likely a subsurface ocean on Enceladus! Enceladus is the sixth moon of Saturn and is the brightest world in the solar system. This world is small and icy, which lead scientists to believe it was geologically dead, as most small, icy worlds tend to be. However, it was discovered geyser-like jets spew water…
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Blog 7 – Extremophiles
Extremophiles are organisms, usually microbacteria, that can survive in extreme environments. These environments are characterized by conditions uninhabitable to humans. The Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park, is iconic for its bright, seemingly unnatural colors. However, these colors are a result of extremophiles, specifically, thermophiles! Thermophiles are classified as “heat-loving” organisms, and are one…
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Blog 6 – Artemis II
NASA announced the Artemis II mission, which will launch no earlier than September 2025. This mission will take 4 astronauts (Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen) to our moon. This mission will be NASA’s first crewed flight test of the Space Launch Rocket System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft. The purpose of this mission…
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Blog 5 – Pluto
Watching the talk about the New Horizons mission made an impact on the way I now view space exploration. There are so many aspects to it detailed in the video I had never thought about before. Over the course of watching the talk, I was also able to fall in love with Pluto! New Horizons…
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Blog 4 – Weather vs. Climate
There is often a lot of confusion when we talk about weather versus climate, and the impact both have on our planet. Many people who deny climate change/global warming do so because they are confused between weather and climate. I had a teacher in high school who told my class that climate change wasn’t real,…
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Blog 3 – Uranus
Uranus is the 7th planet from the Sun, at approximately 19.2 AU away. It is primarily composed of hydrogen, helium, and hydrogen compounds. It is an ice giant, and its iconic pale blue-green color comes from methane. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere, and is then reflected by Uranus’ clouds. Methane absorbs the red within the…
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Blog 2
The force of the moon’s gravity on earth causes tides. Due to the difference between the strength on the moon’s force on different parts of the earth, a tidal force is created. This tidal force, could also be referred to as a “stretching force,” as it creates two tidal bulges, with one being larger on…
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Historical Astronomers in Context
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was important to astronomy because he discovered that orbits are not perfectly circular, but move in ellipses. He is credited with three laws that are still heavily used in the study of astronomy. Kepler’s first law is: “The orbit of each planet about the sun is an ellipse with the sun at…
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Blog 1 – The Cosmic Calendar
Cosmic Calendar Image The Cosmic Calendar summarizes the history of the universe into a way that is easy for humans to comprehend-one 12-month calendar year. The universe is about 14 billions years old, so each month of the year represents a little more than a billion years of the universe’s history. Using this model, all…
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Solar System Discovery 