Get a comprehensive overview of the grandest of all subjects-the universe-in this brilliant and fascinating course taught by one of America's foremost astronomers.
Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy, 2nd Edition
Overview
Syllabus
- By This Professor
- 01: A Grand Tour of the Cosmos
- 02: The Rainbow Connection
- 03: Sunrise, Sunset
- 04: Bright Objects in the Night Sky
- 05: Fainter Phenomena in the Night Sky
- 06: Our Sky through Binoculars and Telescopes
- 07: The Celestial Sphere
- 08: The Reason for the Seasons
- 09: Lunar Phases and Eerie Lunar Eclipses
- 10: Glorious Total Solar Eclipses
- 11: More Eclipse Tales
- 12: Early Studies of the Solar System
- 13: The Geocentric Universe
- 14: Galileo and the Copernican Revolution
- 15: Refinements to the Heliocentric Model
- 16: On the Shoulders of Giants
- 17: Surveying Space and Time
- 18: Scale Models of the Universe
- 19: Light-The Supreme Informant
- 20: The Wave-Particle Duality of Light
- 21: The Colors of Stars
- 22: The Fingerprints of Atoms
- 23: Modern Telescopes
- 24: A Better Set of Eyes
- 25: Our Sun, the Nearest Star
- 26: The Earth, Third Rock from the Sun
- 27: Our Moon, Earth's Nearest Neighbor
- 28: Mercury and Venus
- 29: Of Mars and Martians
- 30: Jupiter and Its Amazing Moons
- 31: Magnificent Saturn
- 32: Uranus and Neptune, the Small Giants
- 33: Pluto and Its Cousins
- 34: Asteroids and Dwarf Planets
- 35: Comets-Gorgeous Primordial Snowballs
- 36: Catastrophic Collisions
- 37: The Formation of Planetary Systems
- 38: The Quest for Other Planetary Systems
- 39: Extra-Solar Planets Galore!
- 40: Life Beyond the Earth
- 41: The Search for Extraterrestrials
- 42: Special Relativity and Interstellar Travel
- 43: Stars-Distant Suns
- 44: The Intrinsic Brightnesses of Stars
- 45: The Diverse Sizes of Stars
- 46: Binary Stars and Stellar Masses
- 47: Star Clusters, Ages, and Remote Distances
- 48: How Stars Shine-Nature's Nuclear Reactors
- 49: Solar Neutrinos-Probes of the Sun's Core
- 50: Brown Dwarfs and Free-Floating Planets
- 51: Our Sun's Brilliant Future
- 52: White Dwarfs and Nova Eruptions
- 53: Exploding Stars-Celestial Fireworks!
- 54: White Dwarf Supernovae-Stealing to Explode
- 55: Core-Collapse Supernovae-Gravity Wins
- 56: The Brightest Supernova in Nearly 400 Years
- 57: The Corpses of Massive Stars
- 58: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
- 59: Warping of Space and Time
- 60: Black Holes-Abandon Hope, Ye Who Enter
- 61: The Quest for Black Holes
- 62: Imagining the Journey to a Black Hole
- 63: Wormholes-Gateways to Other Universes?
- 64: Quantum Physics and Black-Hole Evaporation
- 65: Enigmatic Gamma-Ray Bursts
- 66: Birth Cries of Black Holes
- 67: Our Home-The Milky Way Galaxy
- 68: Structure of the Milky Way Galaxy
- 69: Other Galaxies-"Island Universes"
- 70: The Dark Side of Matter
- 71: Cosmology-The Really Big Picture
- 72: Expansion of the Universe and the Big Bang
- 73: Searching for Distant Galaxies
- 74: The Evolution of Galaxies
- 75: Active Galaxies and Quasars
- 76: Cosmic Powerhouses of the Distant Past
- 77: Supermassive Black Holes
- 78: Feeding the Monster
- 79: The Paradox of the Dark Night Sky
- 80: The Age of the Universe
- 81: When Geometry Is Destiny
- 82: The Mass Density of the Universe
- 83: Einstein's Biggest Blunder?
- 84: The Afterglow of the Big Bang
- 85: Ripples in the Cosmic Background Radiation
- 86: The Stuff of the Cosmos
- 87: Dark Energy-Quantum Fluctuations?
- 88: Dark Energy-Quintessence?
- 89: Grand Unification & Theories of Everything
- 90: Searching for Hidden Dimensions
- 91: The Shape, Size, and Fate of the Universe
- 92: In the Beginning
- 93: The Inflationary Universe
- 94: The Ultimate Free Lunch?
- 95: A Universe of Universes
- 96: Reflections on Life and the Cosmos
Taught by
Alex Filippenko
