Hello my name is Jack. I live in Mill Valley, California, a smug suburb just north of San Francisco. Staying inside was not an option in my house neither was watching television so I spent my childhood outdoors catching tadpoles and lizards, biking, playing tennis, surfing and skiing. The light pollution from San Francisco blocks out much of the night sky, as a result stargazing was limited to the constellations the Big Dipper and Orion. After freshman year I left home and went to Berkshire, a boarding school in western Massachusetts. The night sky above my school was far more brilliant than the one above my home in Mill Valley. I admired   the sky full of stars, galaxies and other celestial objects but frankly I had no idea what I was looking at.

I have been watching Neil deGrasse Tyson videos on YouTube (these are two of my favorites:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D05ej8u-gU, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxfJfv9tirU), which give me some sense of what is out there . But I am hoping this class will provide me with a solid understanding of the cosmos and thus further my understanding of life on Earth. During my junior year of high school I took a physics class and we learned about Newton’s Laws. I am excited to study these laws in the context of the entire universe rather than in mundane physics problems.

When I first learned about black holes, I was in 1st Grade and I freaked out thinking that we could, at any time, be sucked into one. The possibility for spontaneous obliteration kept me up some nights. Eventually my fears were quelled and  recently I read an article about black holes that peaked my interest in them again. I understand them at an incredibly basic level. They terrify me. They are completely abstract to me.  I want to learn about how they are formed and how they act on the universe around them. I know quantum mechanics is involved with black holes, which is another foreign topic to me but one that I also want to learn more about.

Hello people of the internet. This is my first blogging experience ever. My name is Emilio Izquierdo and I was born and have since lived in Santa Cruz, California my entire life. Last week I made the move to Colorado Springs to further my education at Colorado College. This will be a blog that follows me through my first college course, which focuses on life in the universe. I have never had any formal experience with astronomy except a few nights backpacking out in the expanses of Escalante and admiring the beauty of the Milky Way with zero light pollution. I plan to study economics here, but I feel that my real passion lies in entrepreneurship. My interest in this field began two summers ago when I attended a program at Stanford that focused on business and entrepreneurship. Since then I have always had the idea in the back of my mind to be part of a start up.

As I said earlier I am from the coastal town of Santa Cruz. No this does not mean I surf, as many will ask. I do enjoy mountain biking though and luckily I have moved from one town with amazing trails to another with even more possibilities. Another passion of mine is music, but not in the sense that I play any instruments. I do however spend quite a lot of time searching for new music and trying to discover new artists. I’m always up for checking out something new.  I would also describe myself as a very hands on person. I love doing ceramics to help me get my mind off of school or other stresses. All of the jobs I have had to this point in my life have also been hands on such as construction or working this past summer for a mechanical contracting company.

All though I did not plan on taking this class I am very excited for it. Space and what is out there besides us have always been topics that interest me. Through this class I hope to learn more about what exactly the cosmos is and what is necessary for life to exist in it. The idea of where the Universe ends or if it does has always fascinated me. It’s one of those things that causes my mind to be instantly overwhelmed when trying to process.  If it does end what is outside of that? Is there a shape to the universe? The general topics of the boundaries of the universe are ones that I would love to learn about in depth.

Hello world and beyond! My name is Margaret Sport and I am currently a student at Colorado College. Presently, I am enrolled in the class Life in the Universe, in which I will explore the subjects of astronomy, biology, geology, etc. as an introduction to astrobiology and the existence of terrestrial and possibility of extraterrestrial forms of life.  The purpose of this blog is to expand on a variety of topics relating to astrobiology as I begin my journey through the cosmos. Stay awhile, longer if you wish, and enjoy (and remember, of course, the universe is an amazing place)!

Photo courtesy of the 2010 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar

Hi, I’m Ryan. I’m a first-year at Colorado College and this blog will be a window to my thoughts, ideas and mind for my current class, Life in the Universe. We just had our first introduction to the class today and it sounds awesome. We’ll be talking astronomy, astrophysics, aliens, Men in Black, suns and stars and all that jazz. We will also be going on a stargazing trip, which I am stoked for. I actually have not had much experience camping and sorts but Colorado is as good a place to start as any I guess. I did go on a trip with a friend in Utah, hiking around Goblin Valley, the Arches National Park and  slot canyons. That trip definitely sparked interest in me to take this course. I remember on the first night the sky was covered in stars; raining from the top all the way down to the horizon. Absolutely stunning.  It was the most beautiful skyline I’ve ever seen. Since then, I’ve always wanted to learn more about the enterprise of stars that lie up there.

I was born in LA and raised in Hong Kong. When I was in 8th grade, my parents gave me the opportunity to study in the States, so I took it. I studied at Concord Academy near Boston, Mass. for four years, and it wasn’t easy. I had never been challenged academically that much before. But more importantly, I learned more about myself than I did about school work. My dad would always say, “a good teacher does not give his/her students knowledge, but teaches them how to learn and inspires them.” Concord definitely did that for me.

I am currently undeclared but my interests lie in Physics and Economics. Physics is definitely my favorite natural science because it is visible unlike chemistry and biology. I can’t see hormones or atoms, I can’t see the oxygen flowing through my system, but I can certainly see gravity. I can see projectile motion. I can see levers, pendulums and centripetal acceleration. These are all things that we already use in our daily lives, physics is simply a way of understanding and explaining the tools of life.

On the other hand, Economics was interesting to me because it is also a different way of looking at life and problems. In any community we have cultural practices that we do on a daily basis, most of which are based on tradition. No one every judges or questions these practices because it is “just the way things are around here.” Often times, there are more efficient ways of doing things but they often elude our minds because they would be deemed socially unacceptable.

As for astronomy, space, stars and planets are undoubtedly tied to the beginning of life. And the answer (if there is one out there) to one of the oldest questions of mankind, “Where did life begin?” surely fascinates me. Obviously I don’t expect to get an answer to that question in this class, but I definitely want to learn more about other potential life forms, astrophysics and Life in the Universe.

Hi, my name is Silas, and I’m a college student from Colorado College, making a blog for my physics course, Life in the Universe. I have no real experience in this field, except with the occasional night gazing at the stars in my backyard, contemplating the mysteries of life and existence itself. I’ve never been great at science, I’ve always been more of an abstract and artistic thinker rather than a mathematical prodigy, but I’m hoping this class will re-invigorate my love of the natural world.

I currently am undeclared in my studies, and I would prefer to keep it that way until I have experimented in various classes. For my first year of college, I want to experience all that Colorado College has to offer; I have a few more years ahead of me before I plan to settle down in one area. But if I was to choose at this moment now, I would probably major in economics, seems like a very broad and useful degree.

I was born in England, and I left that life behind at the ripe age of two, when my family went to live in Georgia, the state, not the country. We were there for a while, until we moved again to Aurora, CO. I lived there for 12 years, and went to three different high schools. Switching schools a few times was tough, but I made a lot of interesting friends, and had a wide range of life-changing experiences. My favorite memories from high school were performing on stage; I was involved in the improv club and theater and musical productions. Eventually, I ended up at Colorado College, where I am currently residing. Right now, the future is uncertain, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

In this class, I hope to get a better understanding about where we come from, how life originated, and the possibilities of other life forms out there. Life itself has always been such a mystery to me, and I would love to learn more about it all.

One subject from astronomy that has always interested me are black holes, they seem like such an impossible concepts, yet they exist, light years away.

Well, anyways, thanks for checking out my blog. I think this will be a good experience for us both.

Here’s my face for reference:

My senior picture

Hello everyone, my name is Will Hollo, and I am pleased to announce that this is the beginning of a wonderful, informative blog that will hopefully teach you a myriad of new things about the jaw-dropping study of the universe around us – astronomy. Although I am no expert on the subject, I hope that by the end of this two-block course, this blog will have taught you some things that you never knew before. During my senior year of high-school, I took a semester long course on astronomy, and in that time I became intrigued with the subject and learned as many things about it as I could.

I am currently undeclared as I really don’t have a great idea of what I want to major in, but I would say it’s likely that I go down some science path, and that very well may include astronomy in some way. Luckily, I have more than enough time to pick what I will major in, so that’s not something I’m too worried about.

Anyways, I am originally from Houston, Texas, so going to school in Colorado is a welcome experience to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love H-town, but I’m ecstatic to see what Colorado has to offer me. Skiing, hiking, rockclimbing, fishing, the cold weather – the list goes on. But let’s just say I am more than ready to call myself a Coloradan. Nothing excites me more than knowing that when I graduate from Colorado College, I will have unlimited options. If I really wanted to, I could jump into my career (whatever that might end up being) right away, but I don’t think I want to do that. I think that when I finish school, I want to see the world and check out absolutely all of my options before I commit myself to my job. However, I need to actually get to that point in my life before I start thinking about it too much.

I hope that this FYE will do a couple of things for me. For one, I want it to help acclimate me to CC’s block plan. It is going to take some getting used to, but once I learn the ins and outs of the block plan I’m sure it’s going to be great for me. Secondly, I want to develop my study habits early on. I want nothing more than to exceed academically at this school, and the only way I can do that is if I work hard from the beginning. Lastly, I want to come out of this class with an exceptional understanding of whatever topics we study. I don’t want to just memorize facts from a page, I want to truly understand what we are studying so I won’t just forget everything the week after the exam.

One topic in astronomy that has always fascinated me is that when you look at stars in the night sky, the light that are you seeing from those stars is actually coming from millions of years ago. It has taken many, many years for the photons of light to physically travel from where they started (the stars) to where they are going (the earth). So many years, in fact, that when we look up during a beautiful star-filled night, we are seeing stars how they were when the universe was in its infancy. A truly star-filled night is somewhat like a time machine – we just look up and somehow we are also looking back in time. Stars are so far away and yet somehow large enough for us to be able see. As a result, they manage to be absolutely perfect models of the concept of the speed of light. How Einstein proved his theory of relativity and how that ties into this discussion is another thing I’m immensely amazed by, but that’s for another time.

Here’s a pretty cool video that some of you guys may like if you do enjoy astronomy. Many of you may have already watched it before, it’s the first episode of the Sagan Series.

Thanks for reading

My name is Aubrey Durand and I’m from San Francisco, California. I was born in Providence, Rhode Island but my family moved to Bainbridge Island, Washington off the coast of Seattle when I was 2 years old.

this is a baby picture of mine:

The summer before I started high school, my family moved again to San Francisco for my dad’s work. I’ve played soccer my whole life and also play the piano and the guitar. My sister is a sophomore at Brown University, and my dogs name is Becky. I have no previous experience with astronomy aside from informal star gazing, but have taken biology, chemistry, and 2 years of physics.

At this point, I think I will most likely major in Neuroscience. I became really interested in the human brain years ago when I read a few books by a famous neurologist named Oliver Sacks. The two books were Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, and The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. Both of the books are a collection of odd neurological cases.

I hope to learn a lot more about astronomy during this class because I have never studied it but find it very interesting. I’m most excited to learn about black holes because they aren’t completely understood. Here is an interesting article I came across recently describing the debate between physicists regarding black holes and calling into question Einstein’s theory of relativity: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/science/space/a-black-hole-mystery-wrapped-in-a-firewall-paradox.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0n

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” -Carl Sagan

Hi there! I’m Jamie.

Although it has always interested me immensely, the extent of my astronomy experience all but ends with stargazing, albeit quite extensive stargazing. It’s always been amazing for me on backcountry camping, hiking, and mountaineering trips to look up at the stars at night, especially in the backcountry with little light pollution to detract from their fullness and luminosity, and just imagine, well… that I knew more about what I was looking at I suppose. I’ve always been able to pick out some of the more obvious constellations, but beyond a rather basic high school education on physical science and the solar system, that is about it.

I’m currently attending Colorado College and plan on majoring in Biology. I’ve always had an interest in the natural sciences and what makes humans human, plants plant, and life the crazy mashup of biological factors that it is that allows us the existence that we have come into. I’m particularly interested in the origin of this crazy interconnectedness, otherwise known as evolution.

I was born and raised in Essex, Vermont, and I don’t know that there’s any place that I love more.

Mt. Mansfield, VT

Growing up in the wonderful, outdoorsy setting of the state, I have always felt like the outdoors and environment have played a big part in my life, which I continue to feel although I’m no longer in VT. That connection has led me in more recent years to start taking advantage of the outdoors climbing, biking, mountaineering, and snowboarding.

Me on the right, by the way…

I hope to continue this strong interest and connection to the outdoors as I move into the future and to bring elements of my academic life, such as my interest in biology, into this part of my life.

As I said, my primary academic interest lies in biology, so my primary goal in this course is to look at the idea of life and what makes it possible from a different viewpoint than is traditionally found in most biology courses. The idea of analyzing ALL of the factors involved in life, and not just the biological ones, seems very interesting to me and is something that I look forward to doing. Also, the focus on astronomy and life-indicating factors throughout the universe is a big pull. I mean, c’mon. Aliens? What could be more interesting. But seriously, I do hope to be challenged to look at sciences that are familiar to me in a different light as other factors are added to the picture.

One topic in astronomy that interests me in particular is the search for markers of the potential for life on other planets, such as the discoveries on Mars relating to water and the potential availability of compounds necessary for life to exist. Like I’ve said before, it’s kind of all about the biology for me.

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1923.html

Hello! My name is Ben Okin, and welcome to my “Life in the Universe” blog. I hope you are as excited as I am to explore all that this class has to offer. I’d like to use my first post as an opportunity to introduce myself, share some of my interests, and divulge some personal information and explain, to some degree, how its formed me into the person I am today.

Me and my grandmother Sheila Okin, c. 1996

I was born on May 8th, 1995, at Stony Brook University Hospital, located about halfway between the easternmost shores of Long Island, and Manhattan, New York, to Claude and Sarah Okin. I am my father’s first of three, and my mother’s third of five. The younger of my two older brothers is actually a CC alum, and the main reason I chose to study here for my college career.

I have somehow acquired throughout my family life all the entitlement of a firstborn, as well as the intense belief in my ownership of the perpetual short end of the stick that most middle children are endowed. Incredibly character building. Aside from a few, short, periods spent elsewhere, I have lived almost the entirety of my life in Amagansett, New York, a very small town just west of Montauk, on Long Island.

My parents split when I was seven, and from that point on, and continuing into the present, my mother became exceedingly more involved with exciting things like compulsive spending, and unnaturally high doses of prescription drugs washed down with Grey Goose. To say that my relationship with her has been rocky over the years would be appropriate. So, for the most part, I have been raised by my father, a self-made business man, and his mother, my grandmother, a lifelong therapist and social worker.

Growing up I wanted to follow in my grandmother’s footsteps. I wanted to help people, flip those frowns upside-down. But, when I realized that I would have to spend my days speaking to people who I would be professionally obliged to avoid forming any sort of relationship other than a doctor-patient type, my desire to pursue a profession in that field shrunk very rapidly. As I continued to live and grow, I found that the thing I can do with the most success, and ease, is work with numbers. I can speak numbers about as well as I can English. Because of this, and the fact that I would still like to try to help people if it is a possibility, I am leaning towards a major in economics.

But, just because economics is my major of choice, does not mean I do not have a tremendous amount of interest in other academic realms. This holds very true when it comes to the physical sciences. Everything in this world, big or small, living or inanimate, it is all made up of the same essential parts, all act under the same basic laws, same basic physical principles.  This is a held understanding that amazes me without fail when I let it swim around my brain, and motivates me to discover more; to learn why and how everything is or isn’t. I hope that “Life in the Universe” can further my understanding of some of these questions, or answer those questions of which I have no pertaining information whatsoever.

Speaking of “Life in the Universe” more specifically, the one topic that may interest me more so than any other is the idea of  Earth as a truly rare and unique planet. For life as we know it to survive, not just survive but thrive and evolve, the physical conditions must meet such a specific level of criteria that the fact that life exists at all is an incredible miracle. Why earth? Perhaps why is the wrong question, as the universe will show us time and time again that it has no intended rhyme or reason. How may be the better question. How in our infinitely massive universe did Earth get so lucky? It is a question that we might not have every answer for at this point, but we do have some, and those that we do have give us the template for life in general, and the conditions that would have to prevail elsewhere in the vast expanse of all that lies beyond for life to exist there.