Closing in on the origin of terrestrial water: Philae calls back home

by Tansu Daylan figures by Kaitlyn Choi As Philae just woke up, we examine one exciting question of the Rosetta mission: what is the origin of water on Earth? A hypothesis proposes that comets brought to our planet this molecule central to life. The Rosetta mission is an ambitious scientific program launched by the European Space Agency to analyze the water on the comet 67P … Continue reading Closing in on the origin of terrestrial water: Philae calls back home

Sailing the Seas of Alien Worlds: The fate of oceans on rocky planets

Presented by Laura Schaefer Searching for life in our galaxy means first finding liquid water. Water is found throughout our Solar System in many different forms, but the Earth, because of its balmy temperatures and unique geology, is the only known planet with sailable seas. Astronomers are searching far and wide for other planets that might host liquid water. In their search, they have found … Continue reading Sailing the Seas of Alien Worlds: The fate of oceans on rocky planets

Cygnus Loop Nebula. Image courtesy of Skeeze (Pixbay).

Dark Matter Detected, or False Alarm?

Although dark matter makes up 80% of all matter in the universe, physicists are still struggling to understand exactly what it is. This perplexity is largely due to the fact that dark matter is invisible and difficult to study directly, but a dwarf galaxy named Reticulum 2 may have just changed the game. Many experts believe that when dark matter particles collide, high-energy light is … Continue reading Dark Matter Detected, or False Alarm?

Our Universe’s Story: Cosmos from chaos

Presented by Stephen Portillo, Zachary Slepian, and Kate Alexander As the result of observational and theoretical breakthroughs starting in the twentieth century, the cosmology of the Big Bang Theory was established. A crucial part of this captivating story is explaining how, from the violence and chaos of the Big Bang, organized structures like our own Milky Way galaxy formed. The first part of this lecture … Continue reading Our Universe’s Story: Cosmos from chaos

Exploring the Quantum World: From Plants to Pulsars

Exploring the Quantum World: From Plants to Pulsars

Presented by Mike Goldman, Joey Goodknight, and Tansu Daylan What do the interior of an atom, the bottom of a volcanic caldera, and the center of the sun have in common? Mike will begin with an introduction to quantum mechanics, which explores its relationship with our everyday world. Some aspects of the quantum world seem perfectly sensible but other concepts, like superposition, are deeply counterintuitive. … Continue reading Exploring the Quantum World: From Plants to Pulsars

planet scape - space art

Earth-sized and in its habitable zone

A recent story that’s stillplanet scape – space art making waves is the detection of Kepler 186f, a planet the size of Earth and in the so called “habitable zone” of its host star. It would seem K186f is then very much like Earth but that’s not exactly true. The “habitable zone” is defined as the region around a star where liquid water can exist (the bedrock of life as we know it). For a star like our sun, the Earth is in this “goldilocks region,” not too hot, not too cold. But K186f’s sun is a lot cooler than ours, so it’s much closer in! The host star, Kepler 186 is an M1 star, a cool star around 3800 Kelvin, compared to our sun’s 6000 Kelvin temperature. Continue reading Earth-sized and in its habitable zone

Exploring Planets Near and Far

Presented by Anjali Tripathi How many planets are there? What are they like? In this lecture, we will talk about the variety of planets that are found beyond the Solar System. These so-called exoplanets have been discovered near and far, throughout the Galaxy. We’ll talk about the detection of these planets and their location in space, as well as their location relative to their host … Continue reading Exploring Planets Near and Far

A distant galaxy acts as a giant magnifying glass

From “Detection of the Gravitational Lens Magnifying a Type Ia Supernova“ The supernova of PS1-10afx was seen in 2010 and extremely bright for its class and location ~9 billion light years away. New research suggests that a galaxy in front of it, invisible in the bright light, had acted as a giant magnifying lens for the light on its way to Earth. This finding, when … Continue reading A distant galaxy acts as a giant magnifying glass

Shedding Light on Supermassive Black Holes with Pulsars

Pulsars have been nicknamed “cosmic lighthouses” after the narrow beams of radio light they sweep through space. For astronomers, one newly-discovered pulsar is casting light on an unexplored and mysterious region of the cosmic “ocean”: the immediate neighborhood of the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way galaxy’s heart. Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit regular pulses of radio waves. The pulsar in … Continue reading Shedding Light on Supermassive Black Holes with Pulsars

Inflation of the Universe!

We may know that the universe began with a Big Bang, but until yesterday, we had no direct evidence for the drastic expansion the universe is thought to have undergone in the moments after its birth. This “inflationary” model has grown from a speculation in 1979 into the best available explanation of how the universe’s infant moments (less than a trillionths of a trillionth of a second) formed crucial aspects of our universe today. Continue reading Inflation of the Universe!