Access Planetary | Information on planets and the universe » way

The Search For Earth-Like Planets

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:35:23 +0000

The search for Earth-like planets is reaching a fever-pitch. Does the evidence so far help shed light on the ancient question: Is the galaxy filled with life, or is Earth just a beautiful, lonely aberration? If things dont work out on this planet Or if our itch to explore becomes unbearable at some point in the future Astronomers have recently found out what kind of galactic real estate might be available to us. Well have to develop advanced transport to land there, 20 light years away. The question right now: is it worth the trip?

Duration : 0:21:29

Technorati Tags: alien, aliens, avatar, earth-like, einstein, ET, exo-planets, Exoplanets, extraterrestrial, Galaxy, milky, pandora, planets, rockets, solar, speed of light, Star, Sun, System, ufo, way

What Hubble Taught Us About The Planets

admin — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 06:36:12 +0000

Hubblecast 27: What Hubble Taught Us About The Planets.

For nineteen years, NASA/ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope has made some of the most dramatic discoveries in the history of astronomy but it has also helped scientists learn more about our own Solar System. From its vantage point 600 km above the Earth, Hubble has studied every planet in our Solar System except Mercury where light from the Sun would damage its instruments.

—
Subscribe to Science & Reason:
• http://www.YouTube.com/Best0fScience
• http://www.YouTube.com/SagansCosmos
• http://www.YouTube.com/FFreeThinker
—

Hubble has captured the impact of a comet on Jupiter, immense storms on Neptune and even tiny dwarf planets at the edge of our Solar System. The veteran telescope keeps a watchful eye on our solar backyard.

Regarded by many as the most valuable astronomical tool, the Hubble Space Telescope is approaching its 19th anniversary in space. Hubble sees into the far reaches of the universe but its powerful instruments have also surveyed our planetary neighbours. In this episode, well see what Hubble has revealed to us in our own solar backyard.

Even those who, for some strange reason, arent astronomy enthusiasts are likely to recognise some of Hubbles most famous images, like the “Pillars of Creation”in the Eagle Nebula or the Hubble Deep, and Ultra Deep, Fields which have shown us some of the most distant galaxies ever observed. The Hubble Space Telescope has really fundamentally changed our understanding of the Universe at large, but with its high resolution images of planets and moons in our own Solar System, it has also taught us a lot about our own cosmic neighbourhood.

Hubble cannot observe our Sun, or the closest planet, Mercury, because its instruments are light-sensitive and would be damaged. However, the telescope has examined every other planet in the solar system, including dwarf planets Pluto, Ceres and Eris. But, of course, Hubble does not just produce pretty pictures, it provides planetary scientists with vital information about our neighbours that may help us better understand our own home planet, Earth.

More (PDF): http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/scripts/hubblecast27a.pdf

Credits:
• ESA/Hubble (Martin Kornmesser, Colleen Sharkey & Lars Lindberg Christensen)
• Visual design & Editing: Martin Kornmesser
• Animations: Martin Kornmesser
• Host: Dr. J
• Narration: Robert Fosbury
• Cinematography: Peter Rixner
• Music: movetwo
• Web Hosting: Leibniz-Rechenzentrum (LRZ)
• Web Technical Support: Lars Holm Nielsen & Raquel Yumi Shida
• Written by: Lars Lindberg Christensen
• Directed by: Colleen Sharkey
• Additional photos and footage: United States Air Force photo by Senior Airman Joshua Strang, NASA-JPL/ESA, NASA/JHU/APL,

Dr. J is a German astronomer at the ESO. His scientific interests are in cosmology, particularly on galaxy evolution and quasars. Dr. J’s real name is Joe Liske and he has a PhD in astronomy.

Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre
Garching/Munich, Germany
• http://www.eso.org
• http://www.spacetelescope.org
• http://hubblesite.org
.

Duration : 0:6:44

Technorati Tags: 27, About, Astro, Astronomers, astronomy, Background, Bang, Big, Black, Cast, Clusters, Cobe, Comets, cosmic, Dark, Deep, energy, ESA, ESO, Exoplanets, Field, galaxies, Gamma, hawking, HD, Herschel, Holes, hubble, Hubblecast, Images, ISS, JPL, Kepler, Large, Light, Mars, Matter, Meteorites, Microwave, milky, Mission, Moons, NASA, Physics, Planck, planets, Rays, Sagan, Science, Shuttle, solar, space, Speed, Spitzer, Stars, Station, Stellar, Sun, supernova, System, Taught, telescopes, The, UFOs, Ultra, universe, Us, Very, Videos, VLT, way, What

The universe – How big are you?

admin — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:07:23 +0000

1 Dec 08 Update
Thanks for watching my video. I never thought it would reach more than a million views. I don’t interact too much because of my poor English. But there are a few things I need to set clear.
1. “Why did you stop at the Milky Way?”: Because I didn’t have more images.
2. This video is not about God. When I made it I wasn’t thinking in God, it’s more a video about humility and humanity. But each person interprets the video in a different way, and that’s okay.
3. I never said we humans are “insignificant”; saying that the true greatness is not in (or only in) the Earth doesn’t mean we are insignificant. I just wanted to say that we humans need to stop thinking we are te greatest thing in the universe, since we don’t know the universe well enough to say that. You don’t need to be the greatest thing in the universe to be significant.
4. Please excuse my terrible English, I know there are a lot of grammar and spelling mistakes in the video, but the important thing is the message of the video, and I know that the great majority of viewers understand that.
5. “The scales are wrong”: This was made two years ago, with some images I found in the web. Besides, as I said before, the important thing is the message. If you want correct scales search in a book and not in YouTube.
Information about “Death Star”(Saturn’s satellite):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimas_(moon)

Images showing the size of the planets compared to the Sun, and the Sun compared with other stars.

Music: Title Music from A Clockwork Orange, Wendy Carlos. (Original version: Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, by Henry Purcell).

Duration : 0:2:22

Technorati Tags: Earth, estrellas, galaxia, Galaxy, lactea, milky, planetas, planets, sol, Stars, Sun, tierra, universe, universo, via, vvcephei, way

The Largest Black Holes in the Universe

admin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:36:02 +0000

We’ve never seen them directly, yet we know they are there, lurking within dense star clusters or wandering the dust lanes of the galaxy, where they prey on stars, or swallow planets whole. Our Milky Way may harbor millions of these black holes, the ultra dense remnants of dead stars. But now, in the universe far beyond our galaxy, there’s evidence of something even more ominous: a breed of black holes that have reached incomprehensible size and destructive power. How big can they get? What’s the largest so far detected? Where does an 18 billion solar mass black hole hide?

Duration : 0:18:48

Technorati Tags: astronauts, black hole, black holes, cern, einstein, event horizon, galaxies, Galaxy, hawking, hubble, lhc, Mars, milky, NASA, planets, singularity, solar, space, Stars, supermassive, supernova, System, time travel, universe, way