Astrophysics Fundamenetals
This phenomenon refers to the shift in the apparent position of an object when viewed from two different places.
What is parallax?
This planet was named after the roman goddess of love and beauty <3.
What is Venus?
This is the current Director of Observatories who joined our faculty in 2022.
Who is Dr. Triana Almeyda?
Although, the force of attraction is fundamental in love, unfortunately it's not a fundamental interaction of the universe. Name one of the four fundamental forces of nature.
What is gravity, weak, strong, or EM (any of these work)?
Not quite teddy bears, these smallest animals are affectionately known as water bears.
What are tardigrades?
These are extrasolar gas giants that have a short distance from their star (around 0.1 AU). Thought to have formed at larger distances and somehow migrate in.
What are Hot Jupiters?
On this planet, where love burns as passionately as its surface temperatures, 'scarps' formed from rapid cooling.
What is Mercury?
This is the reason the undergraduate coordinator switched over to Dr. Sell in Fall 2023.
What is that Dr. Narayanan went on sabbatical?
For circuits, current = quantity of charge divided by time (I = Q/t). However, this isn't very Valentine's so we can pretend I = Qt. This is much more fun because if you read it, it says you are a cutie! For our pretend equation, if we double Q and quarter t, this is the fraction that I changes by.
What is 1/2?
Love takes us to strange places…like the harsh conditions home to these organisms, often studied to learn what life on other planets may look like.
What are extremophiles?
This is the name of the minimum possible orbit size before tidal forces destroy orbiting bodies.
Named after one love of Zeus, this moon is a bit clingy and very passionate with its strongest surface gravity and volcanism of all known moons.
What is Io?
This is the name of one of our newest faculty members which is also a common term to refer to a special someone in your life.
What is Dr. Bae?
Time seems to slow down when you are with a valentines. Time can also slow for particles or objects moving at relativistic speeds. This is the factor that quantifies how much slower time moves for these objects.
What is the Lorentz Factor?
This estimation equation may be able to tell you the chances of receiving a romantic message from across the cosmos.
What is the Drake Equation?
This term refers to the limit for the minimum resolvable detail between two point sources of light.
What is the Rayleigh Criterion?
This space telescope was launched to search for exoplanets using the 'transit method,' scanning a region 400 times larger than its predecessor, Kepler. After its initial launch into space, the carrier rocket landed on the SpaceX drone ship named "Of Course I Still Love You".
What is the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite?
This is the number of faculty listed on the department website (not including the emeritus) that graduated from the University of Florida with their bachelor’s degree.
What is four?
Just like your heart may be entangled with another on Valentine's Day, particles get entangled together too. This term, coined by Einstein, describes the instantaneous connection between entangled particles and how one can influence another from far away.
What is "spooky action at a distance"?
The flowers shared between friends and lovers are this kind of metabolizer.
What is a photoautotroph?
This is name for the "figure eight" pathway that the Sun produces if you take an exposure of the same spot in the sky for a full year.
What is an analemma?
(Fun fact: on Mars, analemmas are "teardrop" shaped!)
Planets cocoon their beloved surfaces using this region from a charged molten iron outer core, safeguarding them from the fierceness of solar radiation.
What is a magnetosphere?
This is the name of our only full time custodial staff member.
What is Leroy?
The increasingly common technique that is used widely outside physics in addition to fields like particle physics to analyze large amounts of data. The acronym of the two words is also the Pinyin spelling of the word "love" in Chinese.
What is AI, artificial intelligence? (for those curious, the chinese word is Ai, 爱)
Just like cupid's arrow delivering love's spark, this essential process in cellular respiration shuttles electrons through a series of intramembrane molecular complexes, generating the energy needed to keep the powerhouse of the cell beating strong.
What is the Electron Transport Chain?