The galaxy pair NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 is commonly referred to as the Antennae Galaxies because their distorted streamer-like spiral arms look like insect antennae. Initially two separate spiral galaxies, gravity drew NGC 4038 and 4039 together

Chapter 9: Final Thoughts

Jun 12th, 2008 1m 23s

Imagine that you could only hear sound from the middle three keys on a piano and were asked to name a song, or were only allowed to touch one petal of a plant, and were asked to name the flower. The universe revealed to us by optical telescopes

Chapter 7: Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

May 6th, 2008 4m 17s

Galaxies are collections of millions to billions of stars gravitationally bound together. Galaxies come in different shapes and sizes, and fall into three broad categories: spiral (shaped like a pinwheel), elliptical (like a ball, sometimes ro

Chapter 6: Kepler's Supernova Remnant

May 6th, 2008 4m 24s

Four hundred years ago, the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler (best known as the discoverer of the laws of planetary motion), was startled by the sudden appearance of a "nova" of "new star" in the western sky, rivaling the brilliance of the nea

Chapter 5: Crab Nebula

Apr 3rd, 2008 3m 29s

A supernova is the dramatic end of a supergiant star's life. The Crab Nebula is the remnant of a powerful supernova which was visible from Earth in the year 1054. This supernova was so bright that it could be seen in the daytime sky for 23 da

Chapter 4: Eta Carinae

Apr 3rd, 2008 3m 26s

Of the estimated three hundred billion stars in our galaxy, Eta Carinae may well be the biggest and brightest of them all. Weighing in at 150 times the mass of our Sun, it is five million times as luminous!

Chapter 3: The Sun

Mar 13th, 2008 5m 2s

The star that dominates our daytime sky and provides the heat and light to support life on Earth is, of course, the Sun. In astronomical terms it is very close, 150 million kilometers (93 million miles), so we can study its properties in great

Chapter 2: Multi-Wavelength Telescopes

Mar 13th, 2008 3m 39s

All telescopes perform basically the same function. They gather as much light as possible from a faint astronomical object, and focus the light onto a detector. Historically, the gathering of light was done by a lens or concave mirror, and the

Chapter 1: Kinds of Light

Jan 29th, 2008 5m 47s

When we think of light, we think of sunshine or the colors of the rainbow. But colors, like sounds, are limited by the range of our senses. Just as there are sounds that we cannot hear because the pitch is too high or low for our ears to detect

Introduction (Narrated by Simon Steel)

Jan 29th, 2008 1m 27s

The Universe is huge. Almost everything that we know about distant objects in the Universe comes from studying the light that is emitted or reflected by them. On Earth, geologists can study rocks by collecting them. Astronauts traveled to the M

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