Media
Cosmic Videos
Astronomy Talk: The Science Behind Interstellar – Kip Thorne, 2017 Nobel Physics Prize Laureate
How scientifically accurate is the blockbuster film Interstellar? Dr. Kip Thorne will take you behind the scenes of the movie and explain how he helped Hollywood turn science fact into science fiction. Dr. Thorne is a world-renowned theoretical astrophysicist. He is one of three scientists who recently won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for […]
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Astronomy Talk: Black Holes Last Tango in Space – David Reitze
The first direct detections of gravitational waves in late 2015 were made possible by a dedicated forty year quest to design, build, and operate LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory. Why so long?? Dr. Reitze will discuss what makes gravitational waves so difficult to detect and at the same time such powerful and unique probes […]
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Astronomy Talk: Habitability of Our Universe – Avi Loeb
Is life most likely to emerge at the present cosmic time near a star like the Sun? Dr. Loeb will review the habitability of the Universe throughout cosmic history from the birth of the first stars 30 million years after the Big Bang to the death of the last stars in the ten trillion years. […]
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Astronomy Talk: The Restless Universe – Shri Kulkarni
Cosmic explosions were first noted nearly 2,000 years ago but only in the past 100 years have astronomers secured recognition of classes of explosions ranging from exotic eruptions to the death of stars (supernovae). The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) and its successor, the Zwicky Transient Factory (ZTF) are high-tech projects squarely aimed to chart the […]
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Astronomy Talk: Fingerprints of the First Stars
Our current story for the origin of the heavy elements has at its core a recycling program on the grandest of scales. Using Keck, we have traced atoms as they flow from the intergalactic medium into galaxies, where they are incorporated into stars, undergo fusion, and are returned in supernovae and other types of stellar […]
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Astronomy Talk: Gravitational Lensing
Observing distant objects allows us to peer back in time to early stages of the universe, across the most active period of galaxy growth when most stars were born. While galaxies are challenging to study at such large distances, nature occasionally gives us an advantage through the phenomenon of gravitational lensing. Tucker Jones is discussing […]
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Astronomy Talk: Geological Activity in the Solar System
From the elusive plumes of Europa to Enceladus’ dramatic cryovolcanic geysers and the extreme volcanism of Io, the Solar System hosts a wide spectrum of active geological processes. Over the past decade, major breakthroughs in planetary geophysics have been made by spacecraft missions, space-based telescopes, and ground-based observatories including Keck. In this talk, I will […]
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Astronomy Talk: The Remaining 95 Percent – Insights From Gravitational Lensing
In our standard model of cosmology, only five percent of the mass-energy budget of the Universe is accounted for by particles that have been detected in Earth-based laboratories. The remaining 95 percent, called dark matter and dark energy, has only been detected gravitationally via astronomical observations. Although the abundance of dark matter and dark energy […]
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Astronomy Talk: The 2015-16 El Niño: Wind on the Water and the Weather on Mauna Kea
In 2015, the global wind machine fired up record numbers of powerful hurricanes in the central Pacific, with several making close passes to the Island of Hawaii. Is it possible that the Island of Hawaii is protected from a direct hurricane impact by Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea? What does the historical record tell us? […]
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Astronomy Talk: Life in the Universe – The Science of Astrobiology
Is life common in the universe, or rare? Humans have pondered this question for millennia. Today we are privileged to be able to bring the tools of modern science to answer questions that were once the province of philosophers and theologians. In this Astronomy Talk, Dr. Carl Pilcher, Interim Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, […]
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