wavelength
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Stars and Radiation
Stars are hot. Really hot. Hot enough to have energy to spare for their planets. If our star wasn’t hot, we couldn’t live on Earth. And our star isn’t even particularly hot for a star. It’s a middle-aged star of…
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Atoms and Radiation
Everything we know about space comes from radiation. Now wait just a moment here. That statement explains how astronomy is such a successful field of science — it’s based entirely on the information we can glean from radiation, after all.…
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Infrared & High-Energy Astronomy
You probably recognize this image. You see something like it whenever you look up at the sky. Some days are clearer than others — some, you might even see a completely blue sky — but regardless, you know that this…
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Radio Astronomy: Advantages
Whoa…what’s this thing? It’s a radio telescope, the largest in the world. It’s so huge that a normal support system can’t support its weight. So it’s basically suspended between three mountaintops. It’s 300 m across, which is 1000 feet. It’s…
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Radio Astronomy: Limitations
Astronomy is a labor of love, and radio astronomy is no different. As I covered in my last post, radio astronomy deals with the longest wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum (a spectrum that includes visible light). Radio waves are not sound…
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Radio Astronomy
Ever seen one of these before? Yeah, it’s a bit bigger than your average radio antenna. That’s because its job isn’t to direct radio signals to your house. It’s a radio telescope, and its job is to collect as many radio…
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Light Pollution
Do me a favor and take a look at this photo of New York City: This photo was taken at night. Seriously. At night. But…it looks too bright for the night. I’ll bet I wouldn’t even have to shine a…
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The Spectrum of Light
Does this look familiar? People think of rainbows as a symbol of happiness and fortune. There are even myths that leprechauns hide gold at the end of a rainbow. That’s more of a tease than good fortune, if you ask…
