Media
Cosmic Videos
Pluto and Other Dwarf Planets: Discoveries in our Solar System
(March 27, 2007) From the “Evenings with Astronomers” series. In 2005, Dr. Michael Brown and his colleagues discovered 2003 UB313, now officially known as “Eris.” The discovery marked the first time in 75 years that an object larger than Pluto had been found in our Solar System. The discovery turned the astronomical world on its […]
Read More >Adaptive Optics: A Sharper Image Leads the Way
(March 13, 2007) Dr. Claire Max of the University of California at Santa Cruz helped pioneer the field of adaptive optics, a technology that compensates for the blurring of images by Earth’s atmosphere. As director of the Center for Adaptive Optics, Dr. Max helps develop and apply adaptive optics technology to large, ground-based telescopes. In […]
Read More >The Astronomical Frontier: New Opportunities for Discovery
(February 27, 2007) Dr. Taft Armandroff of the W. M. Keck Observatory kicks off the second annual “Evenings with Astronomers” lecture series. In this talk, Dr. Armandroff charts the significant technological milestones in astronomical research and describes how new technology is being applied to answer profound questions about the cosmos. Science Standards: Scientific Inquiry; Technological […]
Read More >Brown Dwarfs: The Gap Between Stars and Planets
(December 29, 2006) Dr. J. Davy Kirkpatrick of the California Institute of Technology talks about ‘failed stars’ known as brown dwarfs. Because these objects fall between stars and planets, they have traits common to both. Brown dwarfs could possibly outnumber stars by a factor of two to one, meaning the Sun’s nearest neighbor in space […]
Read More >Searching for Cosmic Dawn: the First Stars and Galaxies in the Universe
(October 25, 2006) Dr. Richard Ellis, Steele Professor of Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, discusses the evidence that suggests the Universe began in a hot Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago. Some 500,000 years after this event, astronomers believe dark clouds of hydrogen began collapsing to form the very first stars and […]
Read More >Preserving Hawaii’s Precious Dark Skies
(April 2, 2006) Dr. Richard Wainscoat of the University of Hawaii shares important information about light pollution and its social and environmental impacts. Practical tips are provided for what you can do today in your own home. Science Standards: Malama I Ka `Aina: Sustainability; Interdependence of Science, Technology and Society; Wellness.
Read More >Results of the Deep Impact Mission
(December 21, 2005) Dr. Karen Meech of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy shares results of the Deep Impact Mission. The mission arrived at comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005 to learn what chemicals may have been present in the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago. Science Standards: Structure and properties of matter; […]
Read More >Violence in the Young Universe
(October 17, 2005) Dr. Charles Steidel of the California Institute of Technology talks about an exciting time in our Universe, marked with supernova explosions, intensely burning quasars and star formation rates beyond anything ever seen since. These events are responsible for shaping much of the large-scale structure that we see in the Universe today. Science […]
Read More >The Milky Way, Schrodinger’s Cat and You
(September 22, 2005) Dr. Puragra Guhathakurta (“Raja”) of the University of California, in collaboration with Sandra Faber, presents “The Milky Way, Schrodinger’s Cat, and You,” a lecture about the birth and evolution of galaxies like the Milky Way. Guhathakurta takes us back in time to the earliest imaginable instant in the history of the Universe—an […]
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