TELEVISION

Experiencing Hubble: Understanding the Greatest Images of the Universe

Series: Great Courses
4.7
(21)
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Episodes
12
Rating
TVPG
Year
2011
Language
English
Publisher
The Great Courses

About

For more than 20 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been amassing discoveries that rival those of history's greatest scientists and explorers, making it the most important scientific instrument ever built. This program is a visual feast of images taken by Hubble. Go on a dazzling voyage of discovery that will delight the eyes, feed the imagination, and unlock new secrets of the cosmos.

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Episodes

1. The Rationale for a Space Telescope

30m

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Begin an exploration of the scientific stories behind 10 of the most fascinating images made by the Hubble Space Telescope. In this episode, learn about Hubble's design and how its operations were almost cut short by a flaw in its mirror, a problem corrected during a space shuttle servicing mission.

2. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter

30m

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Shortly after its optics were repaired, Hubble had the opportunity to observe the solar system event of the century: the collision of a string of comets with Jupiter in 1994. Examine Hubble's stunning image of the aftermath of this crash.

3. The Sagittarius Star Cloud

30m

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Hubble's view of a tiny region of the Sagittarius Star Cloud has an astonishing 12,000 stars. Study this dazzling image and learn how its unprecedented resolution is helping to chart the stellar history and evolution of the Milky Way galaxy.

4. The Star Factory inside the Eagle Nebula

30m

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Explore the most iconic Hubble photo of all: the glowing pillars of gas and dust at the core of the Eagle Nebula. Resembling a fantasy landscape, this view shows young stars emerging from their cocoons of gas and dust in an interstellar molecular cloud.

5. The Cat's Eye Nebula - A Stellar Demise

30m

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Turning from star birth to star death, get a preview of the sun's distant future by examining the Cat's Eye Nebulae. Such planetary nebulae (which have nothing to do with planets) are the exposed debris of dying stars and are among the most beautiful objects in the Hubble gallery.

6. The Crab Nebula - A Supernova's Aftermath

30m

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Stars more than eight times as massive as the sun take a radically different path at the end of their lives, disintegrating in a colossal explosion known as a supernova. Hubble's image of the famous Crab Nebula shows the expanding cloud of material from a supernova that was witnessed on Earth in the year 1054.

7. The Sombrero Galaxy - An Island Universe

30m

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In the 1920s, astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered the true nature of galaxies as island universes. Some 80 years later, the telescope named in his honor has made thousands of breathtaking pictures of galaxies. Focus on one in particular: an edge-on view of the striking Sombrero galaxy.

8. Hubble's View of Galaxies Near and Far

30m

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Hubble's image of the nearby galaxy NGC 3370 includes many faint galaxies in the background, exemplifying the telescope's mission to establish an accurate distance scale to galaxies near and far: along with the related expansion rate of the universe. Discover how Hubble's success has led to the concept of dark energy.

9. The Antennae Galaxies - A Cosmic Collision

30m

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A pair of interacting galaxies called the Antennae represent Hubble's most dramatic snapshot of a galactic collision. Learn how such events unfold over the course of millions of years and how the nearby Andromeda galaxy will have a similar encounter with Earth's own Milky Way in the far distant future.

10. Abell 2218 - A Massive Gravitational Lens

30m

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One of the consequences of Einstein's general theory of relativity is evident in Hubble's picture of the galaxy cluster Abell 2218. Investigate the physics of this phenomenon, called gravitational lensing, and discover how Hubble has used it to study extremely distant galaxies as well as dark matter.

Extended Details

  • Closed CaptionsEnglish

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