APOD 2.6

On December 10th, a total solar eclipse occured. Many pictures were taken before and after the solar eclipse. This picture was taken over Shanti Stupa Peace Pagoda in New Delhi, India. The moon was tinted red, which was created by the sunlight first passing through the Earth's atmosphere which scatters blue light but refracts red light. Each eclipse has its own appearance as there are different amounts of dust particles in the air.

APOD 2.5

The sun is getting more active every year. This will result in the auroras to be brighter and more astonishing. The aurora over Norway was one of the most memorable of the season. There were visible mixtures of red and green lights and some stars are seen in the background. There is also and auroral corona, rays and distant curtains.

APOD 2.4

ALMA (Atacama larger milimeter array) is located on the chilean andes on the chajnantor plateau where the atmosphere is extremely dry and 50% sea level pressure. It is designed to explore the universe at wavelengths of 1000 times longer than visible light. It is the largest astronomical project in existence and is a partnership between North America, Europe and Asia. the meteors streak covers the night.

APOD 2.3

This image shows a chromatic bow being created in Iceland. In this pic there is a waterfall, chromatic bow, and an aurora. In the sky the Big Dipper can be seen which is part of Ursa Major.  It is not a rainbow since the water is from the waterfall and not from rain. The water is being illuminated by the nearly full moon.

APOD 2.2

Nanmen Asterism might be the first supernova ever recorded in history which was spotted in 185AD by chinese explorers. This picture is showing the gas created by the expanding explosion. This supernova is 8200 light years away and is about 50 light years in radius. This certain type of supernova can destroy anything in its pass including dwarf stars and zombies. This supernova also accreates space debris from its binary star companion- CHAIT

APOD 2.1

This picture shows are pretty clear astronomical object called Cepheus Flare, which contains several star forming regions. It is located in the northern Milky Way, and in the constellation Cepheus. This molecular clous is located 1,200 light years away. this system is crumbling apart and is similar in its stage as a binary star in its infancy. THIS CLOUD IS SO CHAIT like 10-20

APOD 1.8

Comet Garrad is now visible in Earth's night sky with the help of a small telescope or a pair of binoculars. A close observation and surveilance of this celestial object is extremely easy with these tools because it is barely below naked eye visibility. Pictures from past days show how this comet leaves a trail of a nice green color behind. This comet is now in the constellation Hercules. This relatively big comet will never come into close contact to Earth of the sun. Nasa chose a great picture for a graceful and awesome date. October 20

Biography: Ole Roemer

            Ole Roemer was born in Denmark on September 25^th 1644 and died in Copenhagen, Denmark on September 19^th 1710. He later enrolled in the University of Copenhagen in 1662. In this part of his life he met Rasmus Bartholin who was the first to publish his discovery of the double light refraction. When Ole Roemer he had a huge opportunity to study mathematics and astronomy through Tycho Brahe’s previous observations. However Ole went through a long series of jobs before he decided to study astronomy such as astronomer royal, director of the observatory, master of the mint, inspector of naval architecture, harbor surveyor, ballistics expert amd professor of mathematics at the University of Copenhagen. At this time in history very few astronomers even believed that there was a finite speed that light travelled at, most simply believed that it was instantaneous. Roemer was able to accurately determine the speed of light through very careful measurements over long periods of time. The way that Roemer went about calculating the speed of light was through observations of the eclipses of Jupiter’s moons. He realized by looking at the observations of himself and Brahe that the eclipses either took place about 10 minutes earlier or later than they were predicted to, depending on the distance from the Earth to Jupiter. When Jupiter was closest to the Earth he noticed that they were about 10 minutes earlier than the calculations had predicted and while Jupiter was farthest away from the Earth he noticed that they occurred about 10 minutes later than they were predicted to. This led him to the realization that light had a finite speed, which few believed at that time. This made him conclude that light moves at a speed of 142,500 miles per second. The accepted value of light speed today is around 192,500. His estimation was the most accurate at the time. Ole Roemer also contributed to other improvements in his time. He was the inventor of the first street lights in Copenhagen. This was the start of a social reform. In Copenhagen, Roemer made rules for building

new houses, got the city's water supply and sewers back in order, ensured that the city's fire

department got new and better equipment, and was the moving force behind the planning and making

of new pavement in the streets and on the city squares

APOD 1.7

This collection of stars and dust clouds are located in the northen part of the constellation cassiopeia. There is a very prominant red color in this galaxy. This is because the hydrogen atoms are emmiting the light in form of H-Alpha light. The total distance that is shown in this picture is approximately 70 light years. Perseus is also next to his area of space this is along the spiral arm of our milky way. THIS IS SO CHAIT

APOD 1.6



M82 is known as a starbust galaxy and is nicknamed the cigar galaxy. The main reason that this is called a starbust galaxy is because of its very energetic star creating abilities. The vast amount of unique stars is similar to the candy that is very common in the United States today and all across the world. It has a rainbow of delicious flavors(stars). These star formations have given us the constellation Ursa Major. This is a much more active galaxy than our own. This amount of energy devoted to star formation should last about 100 million years. There is also evidence of superwind in this galaxy that are being produced by the gases. These gases will someday escape into intergalactic space. This makes us curious about these "starburst" galaxies and their activity.

WORKS CITED

"Ole Roemer." RUNDETAARN. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Oct. 2011. <http://www.rundetaarn.dk/engelsk

"Ole Rømer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_R%C3%B8mer>. 

"Ole Roemer and the Speed of Light." American Museum of Natural History. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Oct. 2011. <http://www.amnh.org/education

APOD 1.5

During the spring and summer times of mars parts of it ice caps in the south pole begin to melt. This happens because of the warm weather the planet is going through now causes some of the carbon dioxide to evaporate, creating these dry ice pits. In the picture it appears as if the ice pits are coverd in gold but this is actually dust. We have not yet fully discovered the complete composition of this substance. This is a cycle as mars completes one revolution around the sun. If we one day do reach mars astronauts will try to collect samples of these ice caps and therefore try to understand mar's composition better.

APOD 1.4

This image of the sun was taken in 2002 and it shows how the sun has so many chemical reactions at once that it can create these types of surface craters of boiling matter. Some of these sunspots can get as big as 50,000 miles in diameter. The Earth isnt even as big as some of these sunspots on the sun. Some of these events that take place on the sun are signs of how the sun is becoming more and more sensitive every year. It is estimated that the sun will die out in about 5 billion years. Thses obsvervations will help us to understand more about how the stars in the universe develop over time and about the stages they go through.

PODCAST 1

Galileo was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher that contributed a lot of obvservations to the field of astronomy. One of his major contributions were improvements to the telescope and his support of the Copernican model. For these reasons he is nicknamed "The Father of Modern Obvservational Astronomy." Using his telescope he made keen observations of the phases that Venus goes through as it orbits around the sun. He also discovered that the sun has sunspots on its surface. He also saw that Jupiter had moons that orbited around it. His obvservations with this telescope lead to futute astronomers to make even more discoveries. As a child he thought of being a priest but his father pushed him to go into the medical field. Once this didnt go as planned he later found his talent in the sciences. Galileo is accredited for his important and basic discoveries in astronomy.

APOD 1.3

The robotic rover Opportunity has taken pictures of Mar's surface and we have realized that most of the rocks on Mars contain a high amount of the element Zinc. This discovery can help uncover the history of the red planet. It may lead to finding geographical hints of Mar's wet surface. If we can identify where Mars had its oceans located it may lead us to find remains of maybe pre-historic life that existed on Mars. It may also tell us why Mars is now dry and maybe this is because of a cataclysmic event that depleted this planet of any existing life today. As the rover continues to explore the unknown terrain of Mars we will surely acquire more images that will help us attain more knowledge of our solar system's history.

APOD 1.2

It has just been discovered that Saturn has new rings around it. These were discovered by a robotic spacecraft called Cassani. These rings cause Saturn's night side to look illumintated because of the amount of rings and the amount of sunlight this is produced by them. Some of these rings are produced by physical properties from surrounding space objects like saturn's moons. This gives us new information that can later be useful in understanding more about our celestial neighbors. It also shows us that we do not really know everything that we could know about these planets. We still have a lot of exploring to do in our galaxy which may lead to other more important discoveries in the future.

APOD 1.1

This information says that 4 new galaxies have been identified in our vast universe. It mentions that these galaxies have signs of enhanced star formation. These happens when nearby galaxies crash into each other and they rip apart gravitationally. This causes for dust and other particles to crash causing a creation of bigger stars. Our galaxy the milky way will someday also pass through this process and crash with a nearby galaxy such as andromeda. This makes us think that in the past that maybe the milky way was a result of this event as well. In our vast universe this is probably happening to millions of other galaxies somewhere far away. This shows that stars are constantly being made. It also represents how huge our universe is and that we can not fully appreciate it.