Zooniverse

Although I initially attempted the "studying explosions on the sun" activity, I quickly moved on to the "How do galaxies form" activity. I have been identifying and classifying dozens of galaxies; to do this, I (the participant) is presented with an image of an unclassified galaxy, and is then given a series of questions to answer about it (such as it's shape or regularity).

Observation 4.4: Astronomy Cast Episode 190

This episode discussed the Kepler Mission. Launched in May of 2009, the Kepler Mission had an expected minimum lifespan of 3 and a half years, and was launched with the intention of finding other earth like planets and, if possible, to discover planets bearing life. Almost immediately the mission made several notable discoveries. Within six weeks of the mission's launch, for example, five previously unknown planets were discovered, as well as the least dense planet yet discovered. Most importantly, however, as of February the Kepler Mission has discovered 54 planets which lay within the habitable zone of their star, a very exciting prospect.

Observation 4.3: Astronomy Cast Episode 163

The topic of this episode was the Aurora. The first topic of discussion was the visual aspect of the aurora. The reason we see the aurora is because of Earth's magnetic field. They expressed Earth as basically a bar magnet with looping magnetic field lines. Atomic oxygen is found in the upper atmosphere where it is closer to the suns radiation. This makes the atmosphere extremely radioactive, giving the ability to corrode most metals. Because of the way they are created, we are now able to predict these aurora with greater and greater accuracy. 

Observation 4.2: Astronomy Cast Episode 156

This episode spoke largely about the impact of foreign stars. An interesting idea which was presented was that the explosions of any star will have some effect on our planet, no matter the distance of the star itself. This is through the influence of effects such as Gamma rays. Additionally, this episode went into the great variation which can be found in stars, from a white dwarf as small as our moon to a star as gargantuan as VY Canis Minoris.

Observation 4.1: Astronomy Cast Episode 98

The topic of this episode of the Astronomy Cast is Quasars. Quasars were first discovered in the 1950's using radio telescopes, and 30 years later it was determined that Quasars were located in the center of galaxies. Because of this, and the knowledge that Quasars matched with stars, the existence of super massive black holes in galaxies was theorized. Upon their initial discovery, however, the existence of quasars was not widely accepted; it took many years and additional findings before most astronomers came to understand the role they played.

APOD 4.8

This image depicts the Tarantula Nebula, the largest star forming region in the Local Group. Located in the nearby galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Tarantula Nebula contains Emission Nebulae, dark nebulae and supernova remnants.

APOD 4.6

This image shows the Herschel Space Observatory's view of Cygnus X. Captured using infrared imaging, this image spans 6x2 degrees across the massive stellar nursery. Indeed, Cygnus X constitutes one of the closest, most massive star forming regions in our plane of the Milky Way.