Looking up at the night sky or at pictures of space can make you believe it is all black – so why is the sky blue? Answering that question involves understanding how light interacts with particles in the atmosphere. Air molecules are smaller than visible light wavelengths, so they scatter it more intensely via Rayleigh…
In contrast to earlier amphitheatres which dug into hillsides for support, the Colosseum was freestanding. Comprised of three stories surrounding an arena and eighty arches on each story; its bottom floor featured Doric and Ionic columns while its second-floor floors had Corinthian ones for additional support. Builders created the Colosseum on top of what had…
Butterfly cycles for kids make learning about the four stages of a butterfly’s life engaging and educational. Let’s begin with its eggs – small, fragile creatures with colors varying depending on its mother – before exploring what comes next in its journey – wings! Caterpillars eat voraciously and grow, feeding on leaves before shredding their…
People often confuse Venus for Mercury when asked which planet is closest. Mercury actually stands closer on average. Ranking can differ depending on how close or far each planet orbits the sun; due to their elliptical paths, their distance changes over time; for instance Venus rises within an hour before dawn each March before slowly…
Why does the sky appear blue? To answer that question, some basic physics may provide the solution. As soon as light hits the atmosphere, it becomes dispersed into many directions by air molecules — mostly nitrogen and oxygen molecules – mostly through scattering. Shorter wavelengths like blue and violet tend to get scattered more strongly….
One of the most striking characteristics of China’s Great Wall is that it doesn’t consist of one continuous wall; rather, it consists of several interconnecting walls and trenches across northern Chinese territory. Builders employed conventional building materials like earth and stone, but also employed an unexpected ingredient: sticky rice! This glutinous grain was an integral…
As sunlight penetrates Earth’s atmosphere, its light is scattered by gases and particles and becomes visible as blue hues are more dominant than others. Though its plot may be predictable and its characters recognizable, The Sky Blues succeeds in providing an inclusive queer narrative with clear beats and authentic teenage characters – it should definitely…
At sea, in a faraway corner of the Pacific Ocean lies an extraordinary graveyard of spacecraft known as “The Spacecraft Cemetery”. Here can be found hundreds of decommissioned satellites and other spacecraft that were carefully guided here once their lifespans ended. To minimize the chance that debris might accidentally land in an urban center, this…
Most space missions require rockets to be launched at high speeds to overcome Earth’s gravity and reach their destination. All launch vehicles, with the exception of partially reusable space shuttles, are expendable launch vehicles (ELV). Propellers make up the bulk of a rocket’s mass; fuel and oxidizer must combine to power its flight upward. What…
