This post is from ScIU’s archives. It was originally published in July 2017, and has been lightly edited to reflect current events. If you aren’t in the field of astronomy, it may be hard to understand what we astronomers do. Surely we don’t set up small telescopes in our backyard to do research—most locations are… Read more »
I attended my first astronomy conference in high school and I’m not ashamed to admit I understood less than a tenth of what was said at the meeting. This meeting was a small conference dedicated entirely to discussing new science which could be done with a telescope that was little more than concept art at… Read more »
Our understanding of the formation of planetary systems has historically been based on the observations about our own Solar System. A planet is a roughly spherical object orbiting a star that has sufficiently strong gravity to clear its orbital path of other debris. The four terrestrial planets (Earth, Venus, Mercury, and Mars) of our Solar… Read more »
In a world that looks more and more like a science fiction novel, it can be tempting to assume that a computer program or code can do all your tedious work for you. Algorithms suggest videos you might like to to watch on YouTube, plan your road trips to visit friends, and can even frost… Read more »
For many of us who have been switching between different schools, even different cities for most of our life, it can be hard to visualise doing one thing for 20 years. Many undergraduates have not yet celebrated their 20th birthday. But for the past twenty years, the Cassini mission has been traveling through space with… Read more »
When Carl Sagan said that we are made of star stuff, he wasn’t just using flowery language to appeal to your imagination; we really are made from metals formed in stars. Keeping track of these metals is not only important to our understanding of where we come from, but it is also vital to understanding… Read more »
Although only our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, is visible with the unaided eye in the Northern hemisphere, there is a wide variety of galaxies in our universe. Grand spirals dominate the covers of many textbooks and irregular galaxies are the subject of many motivational posters, but the universe is dominated by small dwarf galaxies. To study… Read more »
Are you one of the lucky ones who has seen a total solar eclipse in person? Whether you are a solar eclipse veteran or have yet to see your first one, the Great American Eclipse is coming Monday, August 21, 2017! All of North America will be able to see the Moon cover at least… Read more »
If you are a video game enthusiast, you might be familiar with the importance of the graphics processing unit, or the GPU. The GPU determines whether you can play a game with all the fancy visual effects turned on, how high you can set the screen resolution, and how many frames (the images you see… Read more »
Astronomers have a favorite saying that if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a spectrum is worth a thousand pictures. A spectrum is measured by the scientific technique known as spectroscopy, and unless you’re already familiar with the term, this may compel you to ask: what is spectroscopy? The short answer is that… Read more »