Media
Cosmic Videos
Where Do Planets Come From?
(September 10, 2007) Understanding the birth of planets has been a long-sought goal. It is the key to learning about Earth and the other types of planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. What are Mauna Kea Observatories telling us about our cosmic origins? What amazing discoveries are being made with the most technologically advanced […]
Read More >The Tale of Star and Planet Formation
(August 16, 2007) Star and planet formation is happening today in a molecular cloud near you! By observing objects of different ages we can develop an understanding of how the process works. Dr. Hillenbrand, from the California Institute of Technology, will highlight her observations made at the Keck Observatory to help tell this tale. Science […]
Read More >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 […]
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