Catalog Search Results
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
2023.
Language
English
Description
Examine Saturn through the eyes of the Cassini probe, which has been orbiting the ringed planet since 2004, taking spectacular pictures of Saturn's cloud tops, moons, and especially the enigmatic ring system. Examine competing theories for the origin of this complex circular band.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
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
2015.
Language
English
Description
As recently as 1990, it seemed plausible that the solar system was a unique phenomenon in our galaxy. Thanks to advances in technology and clever new uses of existing data, now we know that planetary systems and possibly even a new Earth can be found throughout galaxies near and far. We are living during a new golden age of planetary discovery, with the prospect of finding many worlds like Earth. Most of the thousands of planets we've detected can't...
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
In 1901, divers off a Greek island discovered a corroded bronze artifact composed of interlocking gears. Later analysis and X-ray imaging show it is an astonishingly versatile astronomical computer. Professor Schaefer identifies a probable date when it was built and two likely candidates for its brilliant designer.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Study the astronomical significance of Egypt's Great Pyramid. How did its builders achieve such phenomenal accuracy in the pyramid's alignment to the cardinal directions? Were its air shafts intended to point at stars of special importance? Also evaluate modern claims for the mystical power of pyramids.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Language
English
Description
For something to be "living," it generally must use energy to drive chemical reactions, be capable of reproduction, and undergo some degree of evolution. Sort through science's best educated guesses for how and why life sprang from nonliving matter. Watch an animation of protocells growing and splitting to replicate genetic information.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
At 17 million pounds, and with more than 2,000 surface panels that can be repositioned in real time, this telescope is one of the largest moveable, land-based objects ever built. The dish could contain two side-by-side football fields, but when its panels are brought into focus, the surface has errors no larger than the thickness of a business card. Welcome to this rare insider's view.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
The standard theory of planet formation is based on our solar system. But does this view require revision based on the existence of misplaced giant planets—hot Jupiters circling close to their parent stars? Compare competing theories that try to resolve this conflict..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Learn how a sensitive new instrument led the way in finding planets smaller than the Jupiter-sized giants that dominated the earliest exoplanetary discoveries. Halfway in size between Earth and Neptune, these worlds have uncertain properties. For clues about their nature, consider how our solar system formed..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Description
Conclude your cosmic tour by probing the echo of creation: the faint afterglow of the big bang, which is present everywhere in space. View this signal in increasing detail provided by spacecraft, and uncover its astonishing story about the earliest epoch of our vast universe.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Considered the greatest astronomer of the ancient world, Hipparchus created a thousand-star catalog and discovered precession, the eons-slow rotation of the fixed stars around the eFilmcliptic. Did this remarkable discovery give birth to the Mithraic religion, which rivalled Christianity?
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Description
Travel to some of the most distant and luminous objects in the universe: quasars. Discovered in the early 1960s, these active galaxies are associated with matter-devouring supermassive black holes. Investigate the brightest and first-found quasar, called 3C 273, and learn what it reveals about the early universe.
14) Lava Worlds
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Explore the theoretical limit of the smallest possible orbit for a planet, taking into consideration tidal stresses and other destructive processes. Then focus on Professor Winn’s search for such objects, which found probable lava worlds—planets heated to rock-melting temperatures by their extreme closeness to their host stars..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Description
Prepare for your cosmic journey by surveying NASA's space exploration strategy. Although human spaceflight gets the lion's share of publicity, the greatest scientific discoveries in space are the work of planetary probes and space observatories. Learn why this approach has paid off so spectacularly.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Language
English
Description
Continue traveling to the cold gas giant Saturn and its large moon, Titan. Watch a video featuring actual data taken by the Huygens Probe as it pierces the thick atmosphere and lands on the surface of this frozen world, and witness the surprising Earth-like structures this probe and its mother ship found on their journey to Saturn's moons.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Description
Study fossil remains of the early solar system, preserved in the rocky debris of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Focus on one of the largest asteroids, Vesta, viewing it close up via the Dawn spacecraft. Learn how pieces of Vesta have fallen to Earth as meteorites.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Description
Investigate the nearby Andromeda galaxy, tracing its puzzling spiral arms. Use images from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer and other telescopes to gather evidence that something once crashed into Andromeda. Then chart Andromeda's collision course with our own galaxy!
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Chart the history of exoplanet hunting—from a famous false signal in the 1960s, through ambiguous discoveries in the 1980s, to the big breakthrough in the 1990s, when dozens of exoplanets turned up. Astronomers were stunned to find planets unlike anything in the solar system..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Language
English
Description
Delve into the search for extraterrestrial life, or SETI, as the method used to gauge the likelihood of intelligent communicating civilizations is known. Look closely at the Drake Equation - the mathematical rubric commonly used in the field of SETI - and consider the challenge of communicating across our enormous galaxy.
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