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Cosmic Videos
Astronomy Talk: First Light in the Universe, The End of the Cosmic Dark Ages
This Cosmic Video was produced from the June 19, 2014 Astronomy Talk given at Kahilu Theatre. The original description is below: In the first several hundred million years after the Big Bang, the Universe was too hot for stars and galaxies to form. As the Universe cooled and its expansion slowed, gravity caused the first […]
Read More >Astronomy Talk: Zooming into the Center of our Galaxy with Keck Observatory
This Cosmic Video was produced from the May 28, 2014 Astronomy Talk given at Kahilu Theatre. The original description is below: The Galactic Center Group at UCLA has used the W. M. Keck Observatory for the past two decades to observe the center of the Milky Way at the highest angular resolution possible. This work […]
Read More >Building the Mighty Keck Observatory
In 1985, construction began on what was to become, and still remain, the biggest optical/infrared telescopes on Earth. Since first science in 1993 for Keck I and 1996 for Keck II, the two telescopes are the most scientifically productive telescopes on Earth, publishing more papers per telescope than any of its peers.
Read More >Evenings with Astronomers: Solving the Mysteries of Dark Matter
The possibility that something unseen but important exists in our universe is an idea that is both eerie and ancient; it reaches back at least 2500 years to the pre-socratic thinker Philolaus. Historically, logical thinkers (starting with Aristotle) have mocked this notion, but there is now abundant and far-reaching evidence that the universe is far […]
Read More >Evenings with Astronomers: Black Holes, Galaxies and the Evolution of the Universe
Black holes form in the young Universe and, over the next 13 billion years or so, accrete enormous amounts of matter from the surrounding galaxy. By the present time, a black hole and its host galaxy have grown in mass by factors of a million or more, roughly in lockstep. In this talk, Yale University’s […]
Read More >Evenings with Astronomers: Finding Astronomical Fossils with Keck
Ancient star clusters are the fossils of the astronomical world. They formed at early times in the Universe and many have survived to the present day. New discoveries made with the Keck Observatory have uncovered a host of previously unknown star clusters – some more massive than small galaxies. Join us for an engaging presentation […]
Read More >Astronomy Talk: Examining the Planet-Forming Zone Around New Stars
This Cosmic Video was produced from the February 11, 2014 Astronomy Talk given at Kahilu Theatre. The original description is below: W. M. Keck Observatory astronomer Greg Doppmann will give a talk on circumstellar disks that surround newly formed stars. The inner regions of such disks are where rocky, and perhaps Earth-like planets are believed to form. […]
Read More >Evenings with Astronomers: Breakthroughs in Discerning New Worlds
The past decade has marked a period of great progress in our quest to discover and characterize exoplanets, or planets outside of our own solar system. Observations of transiting exoplanets, in which the planet periodically passes in front of and then behind its parent star as seen from Earth, have given us fascinating insights into […]
Read More >Astronomy Talk: The Search for Other Earths
Andrew Howard, astronomer from the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, gave an illuminating talk about the hunt for exoplanets and the quest for another Earth. Since 1995, more than 3,000 exoplanets have been discovered. Many of these planets look nothing like the planets of our Solar System — strange orbits, unusual compositions, and unknown […]
Read More >Observing Run: Comet ISON
Join in on rebroadcast from October 26, 2013 of a rare look into science in the making at the W. M. Keck Observatory, home of the largest and most scientifically productive telescopes on Earth. In the Keck II remote observing room, Dr. Carey Lisse, head of NASA’s Comet ISON observation programs, is joined by astronomers […]
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