Emily Levesque
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Humans from the earliest civilizations through today have craned their necks each night, using the stars to orient themselves in the large, strange world around them. Stargazing is a pursuit that continues to fascinate us: from Copernicus to Carl Sagan, astronomers throughout history have spent their lives trying to answer the biggest questions in the universe. Now, award-winning astronomer Emily Levesque shares the stories of modern-day stargazers...
Author
Language
English
Description
When it comes to the heroes of astronomy, we tend to think of lone men persevering in the face of daunting odds. Think of the titans of astronomy and you're likely to think of names like Edwin Hubble, Albert Einstein, and Carl Sagan. And while these individuals revolutionized our understanding of the visible and invisible universe, they, too, were standing on the shoulders of other scientists and engineers without whom none of their groundbreaking...
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
Today's physicists and astronomers debate the idea of dark matter: what it's made of, how it works, and what it means for the makeup of our universe. Go back to the beginning and learn about the invaluable contributions of Vera Rubin and Kent Ford, who found the first observational evidence of dark matter.
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
There is perhaps no more famous theory in the field of physics than Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity. After unpacking the details of the infamous equation that revolutionized science, discover how Arthur Eddington catapulted Einstein and his newly proven theories about the relationship between space, time, and gravity worldwide.
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
Today, radio astronomy is an immense field that has given rise to some of the most exciting scientific discoveries of the last century. Explore the work of Karl Jansky, who first detected radio waves in the early 1930s, and Grote Roeber, who built the first dedicated radio telescope and kicked off a surge of interest in radio astronomy.
6) Great Heroes and Discoveries of Astronomy: Episode 16,The Heroic Detection of Gravitational Waves
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
Dig into what gravitational waves are, as well as the enormous observatories and groups of scientists that accomplished the mind-blowing task of detecting them. Focus on the work of teams led by Rai Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Barry Barish, whose Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected the tiny chirps of minuscule density waves in spacetime.
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
Explore Pluto's brief decades of fame. Start with Percival Lowell and Clyde Tombaugh's search for another planet lurking beyond Neptune, continue with Gerard Kuiper's pioneering work on airborne observatories that revealed our first glimpse of Pluto's atmosphere, and conclude with the planet's demotion to a dwarf planet that was part of the ring of rock-and-ice objects known as the Kuiper belt.
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
Astronomers today continue the search for exoplanets orbiting around other stars. In this episode, meet astronomers Alex Wolszczan and Dale Frail, who in the 1990s discovered not only the first extrasolar planets, but also the first multi-planet system and the first evidence of planets forming around pulsars.
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
Explore how we study the environments of distant planets and what-or who-may be living on them. Among the many bright minds you'll meet are Vikki Meadows, whose team specializes in habitability and biosignatures, and Frank Drake, whose famous equation puts a number on the civilizations in our galaxy we could potentially detect.
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
Discover the contributions of Jocelyn Bell and other astronomers in the search for neutron stars and black holes. How do astronomers observe these strange objects-and what, exactly, are they? What cutting-edge techniques are today's teams of heroic astronomers using to study topics like stellar death and gravity?
11) Great Heroes and Discoveries of Astronomy: Episode 8,Discovering the Cosmic Microwave Background
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
What began as a faint hiss soon became one of the most crucial signals being studied in astronomy today. In this episode on the cosmic microwave background (CMB), discover how detector designs, satellite observations, and other heroic efforts have shaped our understanding of the entire universe, from its age to the way it behaves today.
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
In this episode, unpack the mysteries of Hubble's law. First, take a closer look at each part of this deceptively simple equation. Then, encounter the many heroes behind the law, including Vesto Slipher, an astronomer at Arizona's Lowell Observatory, and Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest and astronomer who may have influenced Hubble's insights.
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
Travel around the world and across time in search of the unsung heroes who evolved our understanding of astronomy. Learn how Annie Jump Canon, Karl Lansky, Vera Rubin, and others sparked some of the great discoveries that have shaped astronomy over the past century through their groundbreaking new theories, serendipitous observations, and feats of engineering (on Earth and in space).
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
Here, focus on the story of Edwin Hubble's most famous namesake: the Hubble Space Telescope. Among the heroes who helped make this vision a reality were the astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer; Nancy Roman, NASA's first chief of astronomy; and a team of astronomers and telescope builders who helped repair a critical problem post-launch.
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
Supernovae are some of the most luminous events in our universe. Learn why Oscar Duhalde deserves a unique place among astronomical heroes, then examine how astronomers study and classify supernovae and eventually discovered SN 1987A: one of the most infamous and well-studied supernovae of all time.
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
How did Henrietta Swan Leavitt, the prolific discoverer of variable stars, make sense of "Cepheid variables"? How did she calculate the relationship between their periods and their true luminosities? How did Edwin Hubble use Leavitt's work (known as the Leavitt law) to measure the distance to the Great Andromeda Nebula in the 1920s?
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
Tomorrow's heroes of astronomy are hard at work today pursuing new discoveries, testing new theories, and making groundbreaking technological advances. Topics in this final episode include the Giant Magellan Telescope, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), and the James Webb Space Telescope.
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
Explore the vital importance of communicating astronomical discoveries to the rest of the world. First, witness the rise of planetariums that can simulate a night sky for the public. Then, turn to the storytelling of science-fiction authors like Jules Verne and Gene Roddenberry. Lastly, celebrate the impact of Carl Sagan and his Cosmos television series.
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
How do astronomers study and track changes in the night sky? Track the development of astronomical surveys, from the work of William and Caroline Herschel in the 1780s to build a systematic catalogue of the northern night sky to Jim Gunn's work in the late 20th century to develop the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
20) Great Heroes and Discoveries of Astronomy: Episode 10,Finding the Beginning and End of the Cosmos
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
In this episode, cover two of the most fundamental-and intertwined-questions astronomers around the world continually ask themselves: How did the universe begin? How will it end? Central to these questions is an innovative theory proposed by physicist Alan Guth that could explain the earliest moments of the universe.
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