Catalog Search Results
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Review the state of astronomy in 1500. Then chart the revolution sparked by Copernicus's heliocentric theory of the Sun and planets. Learn how Copernicus was the last of the ancient astronomers, succeeded by the founders of modern science, including Tycho, Kepler, and Galileo.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (37 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Learn about the newest radio telescopes and the exhilarating questions they plan to address: Did life begin in space? What is dark matter? And a new question that has just arisen in the past few years: What are fast radio bursts? No matter how powerful these new telescopes are, radio astronomers will continue pushing the limits to tell us more and more about the universe that is our home.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (32 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Astrology grew up hand in hand with astronomy. Focus on the different astrological traditions in Mesopotamia, China, India, and Mexico. Also trace the spread of astrology through the Mediterranean world. As an example, study the auspicious horoscope of Octavian, who became Emperor Augustus.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Study the astronomical significance of Egypt's Great Pyramid. How did its builders achieve such phenomenal accuracy in the pyramid's alignment to the cardinal directions? Were its air shafts intended to point at stars of special importance? Also evaluate modern claims for the mystical power of pyramids.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (736 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
As recently as 1990, it seemed plausible that the solar system was a unique phenomenon in our galaxy. Thanks to advances in technology and clever new uses of existing data, now we know that planetary systems and possibly even a new Earth can be found throughout galaxies near and far. We are living during a new golden age of planetary discovery, with the prospect of finding many worlds like Earth. Most of the thousands of planets we've detected can't...
66) Lava Worlds
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (32 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Explore the theoretical limit of the smallest possible orbit for a planet, taking into consideration tidal stresses and other destructive processes. Then focus on Professor Winn’s search for such objects, which found probable lava worlds—planets heated to rock-melting temperatures by their extreme closeness to their host stars..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (32 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Continue traveling to the cold gas giant Saturn and its large moon, Titan. Watch a video featuring actual data taken by the Huygens Probe as it pierces the thick atmosphere and lands on the surface of this frozen world, and witness the surprising Earth-like structures this probe and its mother ship found on their journey to Saturn's moons.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
In the era before compasses and GPS, precise direction-finding was possible only through knowledge of the sky. Learn how the Polynesians found islands across thousands of miles of open ocean, and how the Vikings solved the very different challenge of navigating the North Atlantic.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
In 1901, divers off a Greek island discovered a corroded bronze artifact composed of interlocking gears. Later analysis and X-ray imaging show it is an astonishingly versatile astronomical computer. Professor Schaefer identifies a probable date when it was built and two likely candidates for its brilliant designer.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
For something to be "living," it generally must use energy to drive chemical reactions, be capable of reproduction, and undergo some degree of evolution. Sort through science's best educated guesses for how and why life sprang from nonliving matter. Watch an animation of protocells growing and splitting to replicate genetic information.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Considered the greatest astronomer of the ancient world, Hipparchus created a thousand-star catalog and discovered precession, the eons-slow rotation of the fixed stars around the eFilmcliptic. Did this remarkable discovery give birth to the Mithraic religion, which rivalled Christianity?
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Terraforming is a new scientific concept whereby an uninhabitable planetary environment is engineered to become more Earth-like to support human life. Explore how this complex process would play out on the two planets considered potential candidates, Mars and Venus, to fully understand the individual steps involved and the technologies necessary to achieve those steps.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Learn how a sensitive new instrument led the way in finding planets smaller than the Jupiter-sized giants that dominated the earliest exoplanetary discoveries. Halfway in size between Earth and Neptune, these worlds have uncertain properties. For clues about their nature, consider how our solar system formed..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
The standard theory of planet formation is based on our solar system. But does this view require revision based on the existence of misplaced giant planets—hot Jupiters circling close to their parent stars? Compare competing theories that try to resolve this conflict..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Given the extreme faintness of a planet relative to the star it orbits, how can astronomers possibly find it? Learn about direct and indirect methods of detection. As an example of the indirect method, discover why a planet causes a star’s position to change, providing a strategy for locating exoplanets without seeing them..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Venus is the closest planet to the Earth and the next planet moving toward the sun, so it is a logical place to look for life. However, Venus is extremely hot and dry. Could life ever have existed? Explore the nightmarish conditions on Venus and learn why all the water vanished.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
The most common stars are class M dwarf stars, which are smaller and less luminous than the Sun (class G). Earth-sized planets are much easier to detect around M-dwarf stars, especially if the planets are within the relatively close-in habitable zone. Explore examples and the prospect for life on such worlds..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Even on the clearest, darkest night you cannot see more than five percent of the light from our home galaxy, the Milky Way, because of the blockage of light by dust. Fortunately, the 20th century brought us radio astronomy, the study of radio waves that travel through the dust, opening our "eyes" to a universe we had never imagined.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Gas giant Jupiter is unlikely to inhabit life - but what about its moons? Look quickly at the importance that Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moons had for the powerful Medici family before moving on to examine the connection between the moons' mean motion resonance and the possibility of subsurface life existing in the ice-covered oceans of Europa, Ganymede, and possibly, Callisto.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Learn to operate the Antikythera mechanism, the glory of ancient astronomy. Modern models show how a simple turn of the crank could reveal the day of the year, phase of the Moon, possible eFilmclipse dates, the cycles of ancient games, and other information. Probe the historical impact of this device.
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