Emma
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How Massive are Galaxies?
If you needed to measure the mass of, say, a brick — or some other Earthly object — you could just set it on a scale. (Yes, scales measure mass, not weight.) With galaxies, it’s not so easy! I don’t…
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Another Astrophotography Night!
Last night, I headed out to my driveway again and set up my C11 — but this time, I borrowed my dad’s camera! I’m just starting out, and I haven’t done anything with these photos yet. I’ve installed Deep Sky…
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Tonight’s Saturn
You guys are probably wondering where I’ve been, huh? For the better part of this year, I’ve been hard at work at my novel, at the expense of pretty much everything else — and I’m pleased to report it’s almost…
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How Big and Bright are Galaxies?
The brightest galaxy in our night sky is the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest intergalactic neighbor. Hey…notice we’re talking about intergalactic neighbors now? 😀 In most of the posts on this blog, we’ve talked about interstellar neighbors, interstellar space, etc. But…
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What is the Hubble Law?
Last week, I teased you with the idea that it’s actually easy to estimate distances to galaxies. I do mean estimate — and distance indicators are still important. The Hubble Law is named for Edwin Hubble, the astronomer who was…
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How Far Away are Galaxies?
Well, I’ll give you a spoiler: they’re ridiculously far away. Let’s consider for a moment what a light-year actually means. It sounds like a unit of time, but it’s actually the distance that light travels in one Earth year. Think…
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The Different Shapes of Galaxies
By now, we’ve spent a heck of a lot of time exploring spiral galaxies. It makes sense — they’re certainly the most photogenic. Seriously. Do me a favor and do a quick Google search for galaxies. When I did, nearly…
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A Universe of Galaxies
When the earliest astronomers and philosophers looked up at the night sky, they never could have imagined a sight like this. What if I told you there are only four single stars in this image? That’s right. Four. The rest…
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The Milky Way Demystified
Alright, people…time to finish off our exploration of the Milky Way Galaxy, our home in the cosmos! For the past nine weeks, we’ve covered everything from how our galaxy was “discovered” to how it may have formed. But there’s so…
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How Did the Milky Way Form?
Over the course of my last eight posts, we’ve covered just about everything there is to cover about our home galaxy — or, well, at least the basics. We’ve explored how astronomers first discovered what that incredible, milky stream of…
