Stephen Tremp's Blog, page 43

U is for Universe

[image error] "The more I examine the universe, and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the Universe in some sense must have known we were coming." — Freeman Dyson

 Okay, even though I am shooting for small word-count posts, let’s think big. I mean really really really big! The totality of everything that exists is known as Universe. This everything includes energy, matter, stars, the planets, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. And us.


Fine-tuning refers to a...

T Is For Tidal Forces

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Tidal Force is a secondary effect of the force of gravity and is responsible for tides. In this picture, the Earth is pulling on the Moon, and the Moon is pulling on the Earth. The Moon pulls more strongly on the side of the Earth facing the Moon than on the side facing away from the Moon. Because the gravitational force on one side of the planet is different from that on the other side, it is called a tidal force.
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Here on earth we experience a range of tidal forces that are just right in orde...

S is for Sun

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A star of a proper mass is necessary for a planet like Earth for life to exist and thrive. A too-massive star would emit too much ultra-violet energy, preventing the development of life. A star that is too small would require the planet to be closer to it (in order to maintain liquid water).

But such a close distance would result in tidal locking (where one face of the planet constantly faces the star, and the other always remains dark -- as with the moon in its orbit around Earth). In this ca...

Dr. Sally Ride

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Today I thought I would deviate from the theme a bit and highlight a female individual who has contributed much to the field of science: Dr. Sally Ride.

Dr. Sally Ride was the first female astronaut in space. She’s not the first woman in space. She was preceded by two Soviet women, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982.

Dr. Ride was born May 26, 1951, in Los Angeles, California and has a master of science and a doctorate degree in Physics from Stanford University. She was...

Q is for Quantum Forces

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Uniqueness of H2O: It may be one of the simplest compounds around - so familiar that even non- scientists know its chemical formula - and one of the commonest, making up 70 per cent of the Earth's surface and about 80 per cent of all living things...but it's far from ordinary. Scientists are only now beginning to understand that the peculiar bonding structure that oxygen forms with hydrogen to form H2O may be responsible for some of water's most fascinating and remarkable properties.

Water is...

P is for Planetary Rotation

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I thought at this half way junctue that this is a good time to reiterate my theme for the Challenge: My theme will be centered on Goldilocks Zone: A region of space where stellar and other conditions favor life. It’s the habitable zone that’s “not too much” or “not too little” that would otherwise make conditions impossible for life.

Rather, it is the zone that is “just right,” where liquid oceans and a thick atmosphere exist. Our good ol’ planet earth lies in just a Goldilocks zone, where lif...

O is for Oort Cloud

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I thought I'd continue the theme we began with the J is for Jupiter and K is for Kuiper Belt posts.

The Oort Cloud is an immense spherical cloud surrounding the planetary system and extending approximately 1 to 3 light years (depending on who you listen to), about 30 trillion kilometers from the Sun. This vast distance is considered the edge of the Sun's orb of physical, gravitational, or dynamical influence.

Within the cloud, comets are typically tens of millions of kilometers apart. They are...

N is for Nervous System

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We're at the halfway point of the A to Z Challenge! Hard to believe its half over. You may not have posted every day, or posted on the wrong day like I did, but you're still here. Congrats! to everyone. Are you having fun yet? I know I am.

N is for Nervous System: The nervous system is responsible for receiving information and relaying that information to the brain. Without the nervous system it would be impossible for us to live and function on a daily basis.

The nervous system, including our...

M is for Mass

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In order for life to exist and thrive on Earth, it has to have proper mass. A planet that is too small will not be able to maintain any atmosphere. A planet that is too massive would attract a larger number of asteroids, increasing the chances of life-destroying cataclysms. Earth is not too big. It's not too small. Rather, our planet is just right. Yet one more example of our earthly home being in a Goldlilock's Zone that us just right for life to exist and thrive. We are not here by accident...

K is for Kuiper Belt

[image error] Since we had so much fun with Jupiter and asteroids yesterday, I thought I'd continue the thought with The Kuiper Belt, the Junkyard Of The Solar System.

The Kuiper Belt, sometimes referred to as the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt, is the region of our Solar System beyond our planets and beginning at the orbit of Neptune. It is far larger and much more massive than the asteroid belt that exists between Jupiter and Mars. This area was hypothesized to exist beginning in the 1930s soon after the...