Author: Chris Tall
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Four Forces of Nature
In nature there are four fundamental forces that control everything in the in the universe. They are:– 1) Gravity. This is the force that keeps our feet on the ground and is experienced by everything. 2) Electromagnetism. This keeps your magnets stuck to the fridge but also keeps the molecules in your body together to…
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The Universe
The sheer size and scale of the Universe is something that fascinates me as a budding amateur astronomer. I think of the distances I travel on Earth as being big (I live in the UK so actually they are not that big!), maybe a few hundred miles or so, but these are just microscopic on…
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Five Facts about Jupiter
Jupiter is the easiest solar system plant to see with the naked eye or binoculars. Here are five fascinating facts about Jupiter. Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. It’s diameter at the equator is 142,984 km which is 11.2 times bigger than the Earth. That is huge! Jupiter is the most massive…
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What did the Sun ever do for us?
The Sun. That great big ball of fire in the sky. But what did it ever do for us? At the simplest level the Sun gives us light and warmth. As humans this is what we need to survive. It provides us with day and night as it lights up the day side of the…
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What is nuclear fusion?
Nuclear fusion is what powers the Sun and gives us the light and warmth to live, but what is it really? Fusion is literally the process of join two things together to make them one, that is to fuse them. An everyday process that you may region use that is similar is welding where two…
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Five facts about the Sun
Here are five surprising facts about our Sun. As they are facts they are all true. 1) The Sun makes up 99% of the mass of our solar system. Yes, that’s right 99%. If you added all the other planets and moons, comets and asteroids together you would make up the other 1%. The Sun’s…
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About the Tall Astronomer
My name is Chris Hall and I am the Tall Astronomer. Well, that is what I would like to be. Currently I am a project manager for the civil service but one of my big interests is Astronomy. I am fascinated by the sheer size, scale and raft of different things that are present in…
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Astronomy things to find out
Here is a list of topics that I have studied this year that I need to write blog enties about to help me understand them better: Sidereal time Right Ascension and Declination Kepler’s laws Distance ladder Steller Magnitude scale HR diagrams Once I have written the blog I will link to it from this post…
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Why I love Astronomy
I love astronomy because it is full of wonder and amazement. Size and scale The shear size and scale of the observable universe is incredible and what lies beyond is the stuff that theoretical cosmologists dream about. Astronomy is all about the smallest bits of stuff that make up atoms through to the everyday scales…
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Populations of Stars
How old are stars? Stars are categorised into three groups:- Population III – The oldest Population II Population I – The youngest (Our Sun) Population III are the oldest stars that are thought to have burned close to the big bang at around 400 Million years afterwards. In the time since recombination (~380,000 years after…