Media
Cosmic Videos
OSIRIS: The Latest Keck Instrument and its Science
(July 22, 2007) UCLA astronomer Dr. James Larkin talks about research using OSIRIS. OSIRIS is the newest instrument at Keck and is designed to dissect small patches of the sky in unprecedented detail. It has already been applied to study the moons of the Jovian planets, the black hole at the center of our Galaxy, […]
Read More >Voyager Mission: The Journey Continues
(June 22, 2007) From the “Evenings with Astronomers” series. Dr. Edward C. Stone, the David Morrisroe Professor of Physics at Caltech and one of the leading scientists of our time, has been the project scientist for the Voyager mission since 1972. As the two Voyager spacecraft flew by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, they revealed […]
Read More >Are There Other Worlds? Modern Answers to a 2500-Year-Old Question
(May 22, 2007) From the “Evenings with Astronomers” Series. Dr. Charles Beichman of the Michelson Science Center at Caltech talks about the 21st century tools being used to answer one of the most ancient questions: “Are there other worlds like our own?” How are astronomers probing the birthplace of stars and planets? How will scientists […]
Read More >Dusty Rings in Our Solar System: One Ring, Two Ring, Red Ring, Blue Ring
(May 8, 2007) Dr. Imke de Pater of the University of California at Berkely talks about how the giant planets in our Solar System are surrounded with ring systems, similar to the planetary disks around stars. Within these ring systems are narrow ringlets, broad dust sheets, wavy structures and small satellites. In the summer of […]
Read More >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.
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