Astronomy (Video)

Most of the universe is incredibly hostile, it's a vacuum, it's freezing-cold space or burning hot near a star. The first habitable planet found outside our solar system is in a habitable-zone orbit; it's a place of refuge from the unbelievable harshness of the universe. Steve Vogt, a UC Santa Cruz professor of astronomy and astrophysics, takes you into the Lick Observatory, where he has devoted years of research to find earth-like planets Series: "Onward California" [Science] [Show ID: 24476]

Steve Vogt, Professor, Astronomy and Astrophysics, UC Santa Cruz, shares how he got his start in astronomy and gives a tour of the Lick Observatory. Series: "Onward California" [Science] [Show ID: 24475]

After traveling through the inner solar system for seven years, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft reached Mercury in March 2011 and became the first ever mission to orbit this mysterious planet. Since then MESSENGER has been making measurements with its suite of scientific instruments including gamma-ray, neutron and x-ray spectrometers, magnetometer, laser altimeter, cameras and other instruments. Join Morgan Burks, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to explore the mysteries surrounding Mercury's formation and composition and the instruments that need to work at cryogenic temperatures in one of the hottest places in the solar system. Series: "Lawrence Livermore National Lab Science on Saturday" [Science] [Show ID: 24905]

The study of the origin, evolution and make-up of the universe has made dramatic and surprising advances over the last decades John E. Carlstrom, Professor at the University of Chicago and the deputy director of the UCSB Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, describes new measurements being carried out with the 10-m South Pole Telescope to test the inflation theory of the origin of the Universe and to investigate the nature of dark energy. Series: "Scientific Horizons" [Science] [Show ID: 24126]

Learn why Spencer Klein goes to the ends of the Earth to search for ghostly neutrinos in Antarctica. From Chernobyl to Central Asia, Tamas Torok travels the globe to study microbial diversity in extreme environments. Andrew Minor uses the world's most advanced electron microscopes to explore materials at ultrahigh stresses and in harsh environments. And microbes that talk to computers? Caroline Ajo-Franklin is pioneering cellular-electrical connections that could help transform sunlight into fuel. Series: "Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory " [Science] [Show ID: 23652]

"Eye on the Sky", Integrating Science and Language Arts: Introduce your students to astronomy in the K4 classroom with this easy-to-use curriculum focusing on the Sun/Earth/Moon system. This curriculum contains engaging inquiry-based and hands-on science activities developed specifically for learners in the primary grades. See "Eye on the Sky" in action in this five-minute video. Series: "CSE at SSL Education Videos" [Science] [Education] [Show ID: 23393]

In a public talk in front of the Great Pyramid of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, Berkeley Lab's Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist George Smoot discusses the remarkable precision that ancient Mayan astronomers achieved solely with the naked eye and comments on the significance of the approaching end of the current World Age of the 5,000-year-long Mayan Long-Count Calendar, due to conclude on the 2012 winter solstice. No, the end of the world is not at hand, Smoot says, but it's true that we're undergoing a fantastic transition in cosmology. The Mayan view of the universe was based on the sun and moon, a handful of planets, and a couple of thousand stars. Ours is an evolving cosmos reaching back over 13 billion years, based on a cornucopia of data accumulating almost daily and including hundreds of billions of galaxies. Series: "Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory " [Science] [Show ID: 23616]

E. Margaret Burbidge is considered to be one of the most renowned observational astronomers and astrophysicists of our time. She has been a co-investigator on the team to build the Faint Object Spectrograph for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Her earliest research work concerned chemical abundance in stars of various types and culminated in the now classic work Synthesis of the Elements in Stars by Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler, and Hoyle (1957). The authors concluded that all the chemical elements were produced in stars. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Science] [Show ID: 23343]

Is dark energy really accelerating the universe? Join Andrew Fraknoi and three Berkeley Lab cosmologists as they delve into nature’s greatest mystery. Greg Aldering explores type 1 supernovae. Shirley Ho measures the cosmos through baryon oscillation and Eric Linder asks out of the box questions about the cosmos; could it be something even stranger than dark energy driving the universe? Series: "Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory " [Science] [Show ID: 21566]

E. Margaret Burbidge is a renowned observational astronomer and astrophysicist. She was a co-investigator on the team to build the Faint Object Spectrograph for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Her earliest research work concerned chemical abundance in stars of various types and culminated in the now classic work Synthesis of the Elements in Stars by Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler, and Hoyle (1957). The authors concluded that all the chemical elements were produced in stars. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Science] [Show ID: 23342]