Catalog Search Results
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (27 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Is there life in our universe? As you get an overview of the course - including the five major questions it will endeavor to answer - consider the possibility that life exists in some form in the cosmos. Learn how exponential growth in technological developments is enabling breakthroughs that were recently impossible.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (33 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (33 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (717 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (32 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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
2013.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
In visible light, scientists had described galaxies as "island universes." But since the advent of radio astronomy, we've seen galaxies connected by streams of neutral hydrogen, interacting with and ripping the gasses from each other. Now astronomers have learned hat these strong environmental interactions are not a secondary feature - they are key to a galaxy's basic structure and appearance.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Learn how astronomers use very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) with telescopes thousands of miles apart to essentially create a radio telescope as big as the Earth. With VLBI, scientists not only look deep into galactic centers, study cosmic radio sources, and weigh black holes, but also more accurately tell time, study plate tectonics, and more - right here on planet Earth.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
A pulsar's spin begins with its birth in a supernova and can be altered by transfer of mass from a companion star. Learn how pulsars, these precise interstellar clocks, are used to confirm Einstein's prediction of gravitational waves by observations of a double-neutron-star system, and how we pull the pulsar signal out of the noise.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Since no human can touch the sky, any unexpected celestial event must be a divine omen. Reenter this primordial state of mind, seeing eFilmclipses and comets the way they were perceived before the advent of modern science. In the course of this investigation, discover why comets became more feared than eFilmclipses.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Dig deeper into the treasure trove of data from the Kepler mission, which discovered hundreds of compact multiplanet systems, with planets much more closely packed than in our solar system. Explore the dynamics of these groupings, which have planets interacting strongly through mutual gravitation..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (32 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Space is so vast that inventing a method of faster-than-light travel is the only way humans could conceivably travel the cosmos conveniently. How hard is space travel, really? In this mind-bending lecture, review the obstacles to space travel and consider their theoretical solutions - from combining matter and antimatter into energy, to taking "short cuts" via warp drive and wormholes.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Review the state of astronomy in 1500. Then chart the revolution sparked by Copernicus's heliocentric theory of the Sun and planets. Learn how Copernicus was the last of the ancient astronomers, succeeded by the founders of modern science, including Tycho, Kepler, and Galileo.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (32 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Astrology grew up hand in hand with astronomy. Focus on the different astrological traditions in Mesopotamia, China, India, and Mexico. Also trace the spread of astrology through the Mediterranean world. As an example, study the auspicious horoscope of Octavian, who became Emperor Augustus.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Travel to Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, where the Anasazi culture practiced sky-centered rituals a thousand years ago. Look for evidence of their astronomical knowledge, examine their many "sun daggers," and probe the controversial pictograph thought to depict the Crab Nebula supernova explosion in 1054 AD.
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