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MOIYA MCTIER,
Astrophysicist, Folklorist, & Science Communicator
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Moiya McTier
Jul 4, 20191 min read
Astronomy Fun Fact #81
Since astronomers study things that are so large and distant, we often think in log scales (base 10). That means we think in terms of...
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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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