Space Jams

I wrote my last exam for this crazy ass semester today, Solar System Astronomy. This is a super interesting subject I haven't given much thought to, so I'm glad I took the course.. I could have done without the tests though. My professor should understand that I am forced to take this class, as it is a requirement for my arts degree, my mark should be based on the mere fact that I found some of the material we went over in class amazing, and I now sometimes think about the Universe outside of class. Whatever.

Because I am a terrible student, I started making Astronomy themed playlists instead of studying. These are a bunch of songs with the theme of planets, stars and space in general.

You can listen to it here!


To show that the Solar Systems aren't just something that make me want to dick around on the computer instead of learning about them, these are some of the fun facts I learned this year:

• Yes, David Bowie, there might be some life on Mars.  This lil guy has polar caps of frozen CO2.  In the summer the ice caps shrink leaving water-ice caps underneath, exposing dark zones of vegetation that bloom and spread.
• Jupiter has a fat belly because he spins so fast that the equator bulges.  A day on Jupiter is 10 hours long which is crazy for such a huge planet.  There's also a "Great Red Spot" on Jupiter that is a stable storm.. what's "mysterious" about this storm is that its spinning counter-clockwise while the winds on Jup are blowing opposite.
• Jupiter has the best moons.  Io's got active volcanoes going on and Europa's surface is a 20 km thick crust of flexible ice and it's a prime spot to check for signs of life.  Ganymede is a huge  moon, bigger than Mercury that has salty oceans, and Callisto just might hold the secret to every aging woman's dream:  its surface is covered in craters, but there's only a few under 100m in diameter, which means the crust is soft enough to erase these features over time.
• Saturn's rings are made of mostly ice and rock, are very unstable and constantly lose their matter .. but thanks to a couple of moons that act like Border Collie's herding sheep they keep all the matter in check and the rings looking brand new, 4.6 billion years later!