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Author
Language
English
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Description
At the heart of our galaxy lies a monster so deadly it can bend space, throwing vast jets of radiation millions of light years out into the cosmos. Its kind were the very first inhabitants of the universe, the black holes. Join Professors Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw in exploring our universe's most mysterious inhabitants, how they are formed, why they are essential components of every galaxy, including our own, and what secrets they still hold, waiting...
Publisher
Kanopy Streaming
Pub. Date
2014.
Language
English
Description
Visible light, which can be seen with our eyes, comprises a small sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. The rest of the spectrum, from short wavelength gamma rays to long-wavelength radio waves, requires special instruments to detect. ALMA uses and array of radio telescopes to detect and study radio waves from space. Radio telescopes are typically large parabolic dish antennas used singly or in an array. Radio observatories are preferentially located...
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
A tiny percentage of exoplanets can be detected transiting—or passing in front of—their host stars. Combined with Doppler shifts, transits provide information about a planet’s size, mass, density, and likely composition. Learn how ambitious amateur astronomers can use this detection technique in their own backyards..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Delve into the surprisingly tricky problem of deciding when a lunar month begins - usually determined by the first sighting of a crescent Moon after new Moon. Professor Schaefer describes his algorithm for calculating this event and then applies it to dating the crucifixion of Jesus.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Description
Search for the origin of the most powerful explosions since the big bang. Known as gamma-ray bursts, these colossal beams of high-energy radiation are among our deepest views into the cosmic past. Also consider the chance that a nearby gamma-ray burst could cause a mass extinction on Earth.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
With an array of 66 radio antennas located in the high Chilean desert above much of the earth's atmosphere, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is a radio telescope tuned to the higher frequencies of radio waves. Designed to examine some of the most distant and ancient galaxies ever seen, ALMA has not only revealed new stars in the making, but planetary systems as well.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Language
English
Description
The Kepler mission is changing everything we know about extrasolar planets. Learn how this supersensitive-imaging instrument works to monitor 157,000 stars continuously for years and what it has uncovered since launching in 2009. But first, review the transit effect created when a parent star crosses its orbiting planet.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Using the laws of physics and electromagnetic radiation, astronomers can "weigh" a galaxy by studying the distribution of its rotating hydrogen. But when they do this, it soon becomes clear something is very wrong: A huge proportion of the galaxy's mass has simply gone missing. Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of dark matter - which we now believe accounts for 90 percent of our own Milky Way.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Taught by Professor Bradley Schaefer of Louisiana State University, this course shows how ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Indians, Chinese, and other cultures saw the sky. You learn how the Sun, Moon, and stars were their clock, calendar, and compass; constellations encoded their mythologies; and the heavens inspired religious and philosophical ideas, laying the foundation for modern science.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
The Green Bank Observatory is located within the 13,000-acre National Radio Quiet Zone straddling the border of Virginia and West Virginia. Come tour this fascinating facility where astronomers discovered radiation belts around Jupiter, the black hole at the center of our galaxy, and the first known interstellar organic molecule, and began the search for extra-terrestrial life.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
In the mid-1960s, astronomers discovered signals with predictable periodicity but no known source. In case these signals indicated extraterrestrial life, they were initially labeled LGM, Little Green Men. But research revealed the source of the pulsing radiation to be neutron stars.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
In billions of years, the Sun will expand into a red giant, possibly engulfing Earth. Learn how planet-finding techniques give astronomers insight into the processes inside giant stars. Then study the planets around these behemoths for clues about Earth’s ultimate fate..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Take a tour of our neighboring planets via their radio emissions and learn how scientists infer their temperatures and energy sources. You'll be shocked by the difference between their images in reflected sunlight - the images we're familiar with - and their appearance when we "see" the radio energy they emit on their own.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Interstellar clouds favor formation of carbon-based molecules over any other kind - not at all what statistical models predicted. In fact, interstellar clouds contain a profusion of chemicals similar to those that occur naturally on Earth. If planets are formed in this rich soup of organic molecules, is it possible life does not have to start from scratch on each planet?
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Description
Explore the imminent fate of the luminous star Eta Carinae, a ticking bomb due to explode as a supernova in the next few hundred thousand years. Study the life cycle of stars, and trace the history of Eta Carinae to mysterious events first observed in 1843.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Turn to the most obvious way to find exoplanets: direct imaging. Explore the optics of telescopes to learn why spotting an exoplanet next to its parent star is so difficult. Then see how this limitation has been overcome in a handful of cases..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Not long after the birth of radio astronomy, a Dutch student used what was then known about the physics of atoms to determine that if hydrogen existed in interstellar space, it would produce a specific spectral line at radio wavelengths. In 1951, the line was detected at 21 cm, exactly as predicted. At that moment, our understanding of the universe forever changed.
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