TMS - Astronomy II- Stars, Galaxies & the Universe torrent

Category: Lecture
Language: EnglishKeywords: Astronomy James Kaler TMS

Written by James Kaler
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 32 Kbps

Over the past century, our vision has taken us far beyond the home Galaxy into the vastness of the Universe, where we find we are hardly alone. As far as we can see are countless other galaxies of all shapes and sizes set within an ever-expanding space that was created in a ”Big Bang” nearly 14 billion years ago.

Along with solutions to old puzzles, however, come new riddles, as most of our Universe appears to be in the form of some kind of unseen ”dark matter” and incomprehensible ”dark energy” whose natures and origins remain unfathomable. Yet with all our questions - and knowing that there are questions still to be asked - we have learned the most important lesson: that all of this Universe is our home, that it took all of it to make us, that it is ours to behold and enjoy.While this course stands on its own, it is also an ideal complement to the first course of the set (Astronomy: Earth, Sky, and Planets), which covers celestial motions, constellations, telescopes, and planetary astronomy, all of it then integrated into a full picture of space and time.

Professor James B. Kaler is Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his B.A. in Astronomy from the University of Michigan in 1960 and his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1964. He has been at Illinois ever since. His research area, in which he has published over 120 papers, involves dying stars, specifically the graceful shells and rings of gas ejected in stellar death called ”planetary nebulae.” He has held both Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellowships, and has been awarded medals for his work from the University of Liege, in Belgium, and from the University of Mexico. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

14 Lectures
30 minutes/lecture

1 The Neighborhood
2 The Central Sun
3 The Making of Sunlight
4 Billions of Stars
5 Ganging Up
6 Between the Stars
7 Star Birth
8 Stellar Fate
9 Catastrophe
10 Neutron Stars and Black Holes
11 The Galaxy
12 Galaxies
13 The Expanding Universe
14 Cosmic Origins in the Big Bang