Astronomy 2/5

Moiya McTier

Jul 3, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #80

In honor of yesterday's total solar eclipse in South America, here's another eclipse fact. One hundred years ago, Albert Einstein was...

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Moiya McTier

Jul 2, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #79

Today is a really exciting day for sky-watchers and solar astronomers everywhere, because today there's a total solar eclipse! This...

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Moiya McTier

Jul 1, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #78

Stars are really hot! They have to be with all that force, energy, and enough pressure to fuse hydrogen into helium. But just how hot are...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 30, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #77

It's technically possible for it to snow on Mars, but the snow almost never accumulates on the ground. The average temperature on Mars is...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 29, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #76

You may have heard the terms "redshift" and "blueshift," which refer the stretching and contracting, respectively, of waves. This works...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 28, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #75

Astronomers call an object's reflectivity or shininess its albedo. If an object reflects none of the light that's shined on it, its...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 27, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #74

Comets are balls of dust and ice that orbit the Sun. They give off tails of vaporized particles as they orbit, but those tails don't...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 26, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #73

A lot of people think that it's dangerous to fly through the asteroid belt or Oort cloud (a region of space beyond the orbit of Pluto...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 25, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #72

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, but Venus (the second planet from the Sun) is actually the hottest planet in the solar system....

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Moiya McTier

Jun 24, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #71

For most of its year, Pluto doesn't have an atmosphere. But when it reaches it's closest approach to the Sun, the heat thaws the frozen...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 23, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #70

The Sun isn't on fire. The Sun is a giant ball of gas fusing millions of tons of hydrogen into helium every single second. People call...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 22, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #69

You actually can’t see the Great Wall of China from space! People say you can see it from space because it’s so big, but it’s not big....

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Moiya McTier

Jun 21, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #68

Happy Solstice, friends! I'm in the northern hemisphere, where I'll be celebrating the summer solstice and the longest day of the year....

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Moiya McTier

Jun 20, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #67

There's an actual protocol in place for what to do if someone ever detects aliens! In 1989, the International Academy of Astronautics...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 19, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #66

Happy Juneteenth! Today is a celebration of the end of slavery in the U.S., which lasted for 246 years before the 13th amendment was...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 18, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #65

Not all planets orbit a star. Theory suggests that planets could be ripped away from their host stars by gravitational interactions with...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 17, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #64

Earlier this year (April 2019), astronomers released the first ever picture of the event horizon of a black hole. It was super exciting!...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 16, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #63

There’s a 10,000 (!!!) square mile piece of land in West Virginia called the National Radio Quiet Zone. At the heart of the NRQZ sits a...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 15, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #62

There's no center of the universe! You might have heard that the universe is expanding, and someone might have explained it to you by...

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Moiya McTier

Jun 14, 20191 min read

Astronomy Fun Fact #61

The Moon's physical diameter is ~2200 miles, but its angular diameter on the sky is ~0.5 degrees. If you hold your thumb out at arm's...

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MOIYA MCTIER,

Astrophysicist, Folklorist, & Science Communicator