Cosmic Videos
Truth is Stranger than (Science) Fiction
We speculated about the existence of planets orbiting other Suns for hundreds, if not thousands of years before their existence …
Origin of Earth’s Water
No one knows if our solar system, with a planet possessing the necessary ingredients for life within our Sun’s habitable …
The Status of Major Instrumentation Projects at Keck Observatory
In this talk, Dr. Kassis provides a status update on instrument development activities for projects delivering to the observatory. This …
Towards the Direct Imaging of Habitable Exoplanets with Extremely Large Telescopes
Fifty-three years ago, 600 million people watched the Apollo 11 astronauts take the first human steps on another world. In …
Hunting for Black Holes in the Milky Way Galaxy
The population of stellar mass black holes in the Milky Way is almost entirely unexplored. Only a dozen black holes …
Planetary Defense at NASA
Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are asteroids and comets that orbit the Sun like the planets, but with orbits that can bring …
A Stretching Gas Cloud and Other Dusty Objects That Orbit Close to the Galactic Black Hole
The Supermassive Black Hole (SBH) at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy is surrounded by a dense cluster of …
Exploring the Ice Giants with Keck Observatory and Other Telescopes
During the late 1980s, our understanding of the local ice giants – Uranus and Neptune – was revolutionized by detailed …
Celebrating 175 Years of Neptune: A Story From Its Discovery to the Present
Neptune was discovered on September 24, 1846 (~175 years ago). Since its discovery, we have learned much about the planet …
The Year(s) Ahead: What’s on the Horizon for Astronomy?
The coming year promises to be an exciting one for astronomy on the ground and in space. With new instrumentation …
Broadening Our Horizons With the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
What’s the true nature of dark energy and dark matter, those invisible forces that both bind together and may ultimately …
The Keck Discovery Engine: A Transformative New Capability for Science
Keck has maintained leadership in astronomy for three decades because of the creativity of its community, the nimbleness of its …
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