Nicolas Copernicus Biography Sources

1. Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 3. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. 401-11. 
Print.

2. "Nicolaus Copernicus." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 26 Sep. 2014.

3. "Nicolaus Copernicus Biography: Facts & Discoveries." Space.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2014.

APOD 1.5

APOD 1.5

                   Saturn at Equinox 

I choose to read about Saturn at the equinox because the picture drew me in. It is incredible that something so large can be projected as something that seems so small. It took a digital composite of 75 images to create this image. Every 15 years Saturn's rings point towards Earth, creating an illusion of the rings disappearing. Saturn's rings are so thin that when this event occurs, a visual from Earth displays an edge on appearance. However; the image displayed was taking from an orbiting spacecraft, called Cassini.  

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APOD 1.4
                Potentially Habitable Moons 

I choose to view this article because the thought of another possible home for human survival is incredible, a sy-fy movie come true. Upon reading the page, I learned that a mission, called the Galileo Mission, to Jupiter, lead to the discovery of ocean of liquid waters and signs of Ganymede's interior seas. In the case of Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, the Cassini probe discovered erupting fountains of water ice. Looking into Titan, the large moon covers up surface lakes of frigid but still liquid hydrocarbons with it's dense atmosphere. These sources of water is what in vital in the survival of life. All these facts have lead researchers to believe that there is more habitable exomoons than there are exoplanets.

Recent Observations

Although the nights have often been very cloudy due to the weather, I have managed to observe some astrological events over the past few weeks. The first of these events being Venus and Mars passing each other in close proximity. This occurred over the course of many days, as the planets began to once more move apart. I have also been observing the moon in the mornings before I attend school. I have watched the moon transform from a waning gibbous to the third quarter moon, and then to a waning crescent. The light reflected off the moon is becoming less visible as the shadow takes over, soon the phase will become a new moon.

APOD 1.3

APOD 1.3
                 An Aurora Cupcake with a Milky Way Topping 
                    

I chose this article because I, personally, find the Aurora light shows amazing and hope to see it in person one day. When reading over the article I found that double auroral ovals were seen over Sweden. The auroral ovals were topped off with the central band of our Milky Way galaxy, making the whole image look like a rainbow cupcake. I learned that auroras are caused by our sun ejecting plasma clouds into the Solar System (in this case, it happened a few days before), thus ending in ionized particles subsequently impacted the magnetosphere of Earth. The article ended off on an active sunspot group, which out of curiosity, I clicked to follow. The page I was redirected to was from August 1, 2002. One that page, reports of sunspot clusters that were about thirty times the diameter of Earth were displayed and I learned that individual sunspots are not cataloged but group clusters of sunspots are. 

                                  

APOD 1.2

APOD 1.2
                      M6: The Butterfly Cluster

I chose to review this article because the butterfly cluster appears in the constellation, Scorpius. This swayed my decision into selected it because my zodiacal sign is Scorpius. When I read the page, I learned not only of the cluster's nick name but also the scientific number assigned to it, NGC 6405. It's distance is 20,000 light years away and has a 20 light year span. The 100 million year old cluster is composed mainly of young blue stars, such as most clusters apparently are. I decided to follow up on young blue stars. By clicking the link I ended up on a post from October 14, 2009. The page discussed another cluster called Pleiades (also known as the seven sisters or M45). It is known a blue reflection nebulae. This is because although they are not related, the stars and a cosmic dust cloud cross paths in space, creating the appearance that the seven sisters have.

APOD 1.1

APOD 1.1
                  Milky Way Over Yellowstone

I chose to read about this particular article due to my recent summer trip to Yellowstone, Wyoming. While reading the article, many things I saw I had already learned from that trip. By clicking to learn more about the central band of the Milky Way, it took me to a page that had been written on July 10, 2011. After reading that page I followed a link to dark dust lanes (a July 8,2009 post) and I learned that dark dust lanes are caused by dust obscuring the starlight, as well as, the fact that dark dust lanes are formed of hydrogen and molecular gas.