never going back to nine planets… ever. When many of us grew up, there were nine planets in the Solar System. It was like a fixed point in our brains. As kids, memorizing this list was an early right of passage of nerd pride: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. But then in 2005, Mike Brown discovered Eris, an icy object thought to be about the same size as Pluto, out beyond its orbit. That would bring the total number of planets to ten. Right? There's…
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gamma ray telescope. key ideas: 1.What is a CCD? 2.What are the three basic categories of things that Astronomers use telescopes for? (Answer: imaging, spectroscopy, and timing.) 3.What is a spectrograph? 4.What are the three major ways that Earth's atmosphere negatively affects ground based astronomy. (Answer: it absorbs all but light with frequencies near the visible and radio portions of the spectrum, light pollution, and twinkling.) 5.What is the process that is used to correct atmospheric…
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What is Mars made of? Is it home to any living things? How many space missions have there been to Mars? Everyone has wondered about these questions before. This research paper will explore Mars and everything on it. The simple facts about Mars, what is on Mars, and all of the recent space missions that have been to Mars will be addressed in this paper. What is Mars? Mars is a red planet that is made mostly of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon. Mars is the second smallest planet, after Mercury…
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Have you been recently married and are looking to get away? Well the planet of love is perfect for you. Did you know that this planet was named after the roman goddess of love? Well this terrestrial is a fantastic get away for you and the one you love we have everything from honeymoon sweets to couples dinning at our famous asteroid café. You will never run out of fun things to do during the day because one day on this planet is 243 days and an orbit length of 225 days which means that one, day…
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far fewer people? Let us look back in the world's history: for example, between roughly 900AD and 1350AD the temperatures were much higher than now. And, back then there were fewer people, no cars, no electric utilities, and no factories, etc. So what caused the earth's heat? Could it be a natural occurrence? The temperature graph at the bottom of this article shows the temperatures of the earth before Christ to 2040. In the book THE DISCOVERERS published in February 1985 by Daniel J. Boorstin…
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the masterpiece is his own work. He may have roughed of part of the design, laid on a few strokes , but he has learned to accept the discoveries of others with the same delight that he experienced on his own[...] (Astronomy Today, Chap. 16, p 383) What we know today about the universe is a collective work of many generation of dedicated man and woman who continue to add new insight of astronomy great spectrum of universe. Some scholars may add a little, some may add a lot, yet some may change our…
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Finding life on another planet has been talked about for a long time. It can be an exciting subject because there are many possibilities. There are many planets that are yet to be discovered. There are many different kinds of planets out there as well that come in different varieties. For example some planets have atmosphere while others have no atmosphere to speak of, and some planets have water while some don’t. The fact that not all planets are the same is well known. What is not known is if there…
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signs of life that have been extinct for millions of years. There are some places in our solar system that are promising in terms of finding life. One of the most exciting places for housing extra-terrestrial life in our solar system is Saturn's moon Enceladus. At just about 314 miles in diameter, it's minuscule compared to Earth, which is nearly 8,000 miles across. Since it reflects nearly all the faint sunlight that…
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the intergalactic mantle. Mead is now working on improving SETI’s All-Sky Optical Telescope to be 100 times more powerful and extend detection into the infrared. NAYSAYERS Not everyone holds such confidence in finding intelligent life on distant planets. Benjamin M. Zuckerman of the UCLA Astronomy Department represents one of the strongest academic voices in the camp of extraterrestrial naysayers. Zuckerman, who completed his doctoral thesis in astronomy at Harvard in 1968, recognizes in his book…
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Out of all the planets in the Milky Way Galaxy, Earth is the only known planet that is habitable. The Earth is about three-fourths covered by water and one-fourth covered by land. For thousands of years, billions of people have made numerous consequences resulting in pollution, deforestation, waste disposal, loss of biodiversity, overpopulation, etc. In Disney Pixar’s animated film, WALL-E, humans have abandoned Earth due to the accumulation of garbage in 2805. WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter…
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