Space Lectures

Representing nature's biggest explosions since the Big Bang itself, gamma-ray bursts were first accidentally spotted in the 1960s by Department of Defense satellites hunting for terrestrial nuclear blasts. In this talk Prof. Berger describes the ensuing decades-long quest to decipher the origin and energy source of these mysterious explosions. He explains how gamma-ray bursts are now used to probe the first generation of stars and galaxies formed less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

November 14, 2012
Dr. Roger Blandford (Kavli Institute, Stanford University)

While black holes are popularly associated with death and doom, astrophysicists increasingly see them as creators, not destroyers — playing a major role in the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars, and planets. Dr. Blandford (whose research interests include black holes, galaxies, and cosmology) summarizes why scientists now think that black holes of various sizes actually do exist, describes some of their strange properties, and explains their environmental impact on the universe at large.

Quasars are among the most dramatic objects anywhere in the cosmos. They emit prodigious amounts of energy, all due to a supermassive black hole at the heart of a galaxy. Visible far across the Universe, quasars can be used to trace both the early life of galaxies, and the properties of the intervening space.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,500 lectures free to access or download from the website.
Website:
Twitter:
Facebook:

Inaugural Lecture of Professor Daniele Faccio at Heriot-Watt University.

Additional lectures by Leonard Susskind:

ER=EPR:
ER=EPR but Entanglement is Not Enough:
Fractal Flows and the Arrow of Time:
Working Group on Issues in de Sitter Space:
Butterflies, Complexity, and Signals to Bob:
Aspects of Eternal Inflation:
Quantum Complexity Inside Black Holes:

Find more lectures by Stephen Hawking, Edward Witten, Jim Gates, John Preskill, Sean Carroll, Joe Polchinski, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Donald Marolf, and many more on my channel
----------------------------------------------
Leonard Susskind
Stanford & KITP
Aug 25, 2013

'Inside Black Holes' lecture given by Lenny Susskind at the KITP Blackboard Lunch.

Coordinators: Raphael Bousso (UCB), Samir Mathur (OSU), Rob Myers (PI), Joe Polchinski (KITP), Lenny Susskind (Stanford)
Scientific Advisor: Don Marolf (UCSB)

Video can also be found here:

A look at the most violent events that occur in our Universe, from supernovae and hypernovae to the cause of gamma ray bursts and what was the biggest explosion of all - the Big Bang origin of the Universe itself.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:


Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website.

May 19, 2010
Dr. Alex Filippenko (University of California, Berkeley)
Black holes are regions of space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape! No longer confined to the imaginations of science-fiction writers and theoretical physicists, black holes have recently been discovered in large numbers by observational astronomers. Learn about the remarkable properties of these bizarre objects from one of the finest explainers in the field of astronomy.

Lecture Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2009. Black holes are everywhere in the Universe. They form when massive stars end their life in a simultaneous violent collapse and energetic explosion. Galaxies end up littered with small black holes, each roughly the mass of ten Suns. Nearly every galaxy center ends up with a single huge black hole, with the mass of a million to a billion Suns. During their lifetimes, black holes chew up their surroundings and spew out ultra-energetic beams of radiation and matter that are visible from across the Universe. In this lecture, Prof. Jonathan McKinney discusses how black holes form, outlines how they are detected, and shows movies that illustrate how they work according to Einstein and state-of-the-art computer simulations. We will see that these blackest of all objects in the Universe actually shine the brightest. Lecturer: Prof. Jonathan McKinney, Stanford University.

Abstract: Evidence has been accumulating for several decades that many galaxies harbor central mass concentrations that may be in the form of black holes with masses between a few million to a few billion time the mass of the Sun.

Dr. Genzel will discuss measurements over the last two decades, employing adaptive optics imaging and spectroscopy on large ground-based telescopes that prove the existence of such a massive black hole in the Center of our Milky Way, beyond any reasonable doubt. These data also provide key insights into its properties and environment. Most recently, a tidally disrupting cloud of gas has been discovered on an almost radial orbit that reached its peri-distance of ~2000 Schwarzschild radii in 2014, promising to be a valuable tool for exploring the innermost accretion zone. Future interferometric studies of the Galactic Center Black hole promise to be able to test gravity in its strong field limit.

This session explores the almost unfathomable scales of theoretical physics, from the mysterious properties of dark matter to the depths of our universe and beyond. Experiments, like the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva that smashes together protons at high energies, tell us about the smallest length scales we can observe today while measurements of the universe stretch our observations of large length scales to their limits. Theoretical physicists like Lisa Randall tie the results of these experiments to mysteries about our universe. Professor Randall will tell us about the Higgs boson discovery and its implications. She will also explore possibilities for the nature of dark matter and of space itself. Can there be an unseen extra dimension in our universe? Theoretical physics truly knows no bounds

Fifty Years of Quasars: A Symposium in Honor of Maarten Schmidt
Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA - Sept. 9-10, 2013
More info:
Links to talks with video of speaker:

Fifty years ago, the discovery of quasars transformed astronomy. Studies of quasars and other active galactic nuclei still are a major, vibrant, and developing part of astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology. This year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of this discovery, and honor Maarten Schmidt, whose insight into the nature of quasar spectra was a decisive milestone in the rise of this new field of research, in addition to his continued contributions ever since.

The meeting consisted of invited talks only, covering various aspects of the history and the current state of quasar research.

© 2013 California Institute of Technology

Is it possible that time is real, and that the laws of physics are not fixed? Lee Smolin, A C Grayling, Gillian Tett, and Bronwen Maddox explore the implications of such a profound re-think of the natural and social sciences, and consider how it might impact the way we think about surviving the future.

Listen to the podcast of the full event including audience Q&A;:

Follow the RSA on Twitter:
Like the RSA on Facebook:

Our events are made possible with the support of our Fellowship. Support us by donating or applying to become a Fellow.

Donate:
Become a Fellow:

Lecture Date: Tuesday, April 25, 2006. Extra dimensions of space may be present in our universe. Their discovery would dramatically change our view of the cosmos and would prompt many questions. How do they hide? What is their shape? How many are there? How big are they? Do particles and forces feel their presence?

This lecture will explain the concept of dimensions and show that current theoretical models predict the existence of extra spatial dimensions which could be in the discovery reach of present and near-term experiments. The manner by which these additional dimensions reveal their existence will be described. Searches for modifications of the gravitational force, astrophysical effects, and collider signatures already constrain the size of extra dimensions and will be summarized. Once new dimensions are discovered, the technology by which the above questions can be answered will be discussed. Lecturer: JoAnne Hewett, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

For decades, Dr. Kip Thorne, the physicist behind the movie Interstellar and the man who imagined wormholes, has imagined, reinvented, and changed the ways prominent physicists and just plain folks think about the workings of the universe. Hear him speak about the stranger-than-fiction science of general relativity that is the underpinning of one of the century's must-see movies, on the 100th anniversary of Einstein's incredible discovery.

Use the URL: for 10% with a new website and support this channel. Also make your life easier. Thanks a lot to Squarespace for supporting the show!

There are cosmic snipers firing at random into the unvierse. What are they and what happens if they hit us?

Support us on Patreon so we can make more stuff (and get cool stuff in return):

Kurzgesagt merch here:

Get the music of the video here:

soundcloud:
bandcamp:


THANKS A LOT TO OUR LOVELY PATRONS FOR SUPPORTING US:

John Wendeborn, Mia Butorac, Wesley Byrd, Richard Judd, Max Bowers, Mitchell Greenaway, Albinomaur, Harry, Erik, Onnen, Connor, Woodard, BurmansHealthShop, Output Coupler, William Hector, Wes, Quantum Cat, Kyle Fox, Leo Caillard, Alex Tudorica, Nicholas Peterson, Haden Wasserbaech, Robert Martin, Brian David Henderson, Justin Rimando, JMW, MartinHanzlík, Veritasium, Oli Boersma, Fredrik Sundqvist, Brayden Hull, Dwight VanTuyl, Karl Ostmo, Annemarie Landman, Alfonso Cornejo, James Cochran, Paul Craig, Syed Rafay Mahmood, Justin Ritchie, Victor Hilario, David Humphreys, Brian, Nicholas Bethencourt, Nate Guest, Razvan Caliman, Steven Arcangeli, Ryan Poole, Samantha Adikari, Skid Vis, Muhammad Ragab, Kasper Eriksen, Connor Findlay, Matt Tavani, Thomas Leese, Daniel Podobinski, Corey Hinds, Milosz, Jeroen Klapwijk, Nicole Kalagayan, Dan Longauer, Dennis, Lorenzo89er, Charles Shuller, Dana Levinthal, Adam Thompson-Sharpe, shahad sadeq, Jenny Ng, Leo Herzog, Charles Macdonald, Jill Hoffman, Bluesparks, ethnicolor, Jacob Venable, Andrei-Gabriel, Michal Ciechomski, Wisecrack, Brett Smithson

Death From Space — Gamma-Ray Bursts Explained

Help us caption & translate this video!

The biggest stars burn the fastest and brightest, and when they die, they do so spectacularly, exploding as supernovae and leaving behind some of the most fantastic objects in the universe: neutron stars and black holes. In this public science talk recorded at James Madison University on April 17, 2014, Dr. Scott Ransom (NRAO/UVa) discussed how these crazy objects are created, some of their amazing properties and why we (probably!) don't need to worry about them too much here in our cozy homes on Earth.

To learn more about our public science presentations, and to be informed, when our next ones will take place, please visit our website:

Christopher D. Impey, Distinguished Professor, Astronomy/Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona. Presented March 8, 2011.

Our reconstruction of the chronology of events that led to the origin of the Earth and subsequent chemical evolution on our planet informs us that nothing unusual was required for the origin and development of terrestrial life, and that therefore life may be pervasive throughout the cosmos. Whether extraterrestrial life exists is so ancient and beguiling a question that humankind is actively seeking the answer in its explorations of the planetary systems in our solar system. It may one day transpire that we discover that genesis has occurred, independently, not once but twice in our solar system. At that point, we could safely infer that life is a fundamental feature of our universe ... along with dark matter, supernovae, and black holes.

Cosmic Origins is the story of the universe but it's also our story. Hear about origin of space and time, mass and energy, the atoms in our bodies, the compact objects where matter can end up, and the planets and moons where life may flourish. Modern cosmology includes insights and triumphs, but mysteries remain. Join the six speakers who will explore cosmology's historical and cultural backdrop to explain the discoveries that speak of our cosmic origins.

Astronomer Phil Plait discusses Black Holes in his lecture Seven Ways a Black Hole Can Kill You at Launchpad 2009 in Laramie, Wyoming.

Great video explaining the science of Jupiter and the exciting Juno mission. Features interviews with scientists and engineers working on the probe with interesting computer-generated imagery of the mission.

Explains the science of the solar system, why this mission matters, the instruments on board and the scientists and engineers behind this mission.

Read much more at the source of this documentary,

I downloaded hundreds of 1 minute videos and combined, so the documentary changes style a bit and is a little long-winded. Once it gets long-winded stop watching, skim through it or even better watch 2x speed!

The probe arrived at Jupiter on July 4th 2016. (Launched August 5 2011)

Dr. Michelson is the Principal Investigator of the Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Observatory.

The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Observatory scans the entire sky once every three hours. It has revealed many types of high-energy sources including gamma-ray bursts, many types of pulsars, active galaxies, and binary systems.

In this talk Dr. Michelson will give an overview of Fermi’s discoveries and offer speculation of what might be found next, including possible sources of gravitational radiation.

A powerful NASA telescope has found not one, but ten supermassive black holes. And it did so on accident! Trace explains what exactly black holes are and why the discovery is so awesome.

Read More:

About NuSTAR: The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array

The NuSTAR mission has deployed the first orbiting telescopes to focus light in the high energy X-ray (6 - 79 keV) region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Our view of the universe in this spectral window has been limited because previous orbiting telescopes have not employed true focusing optics, but rather have used coded apertures that have intrinsically high backgrounds and limited sensitivity.

Catching Black Holes on the Fly

NASA's black-hole-hunter spacecraft, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has bagged its first 10 supermassive black holes. The mission, which has a mast the length of a school bus, is the first telescope capable of focusing the highest-energy X-ray light into detailed pictures.

NASA discovers 10 supermassive black holes ... by accident

These black holes hide in the center of galaxies, pulling in matter around them. As matter falls in, the supermassive black hole ejects a huge burst of X-ray radiation. That's what the NuSTAR telescope detected.

Black Holes May Have Been Common in Early Universe

Black holes may have been abundant among the first stars in the universe, helping explain the origin of the supermassive monsters that lurk at the heart of galaxies today, researchers say.

Black Holes: Facts, Theory & Definition

Black holes are some of the strangest and most fascinating objects found in outer space. They are objects of extreme density, with such strong gravitational attraction that even light cannot escape from their grasp if it comes near enough.

Watch More:
Broadband in Space:

Another Earth?:

Space Food:

____________________

DNews is dedicated to satisfying your curiosity and to bringing you mind-bending stories & perspectives you won't find anywhere else! New videos twice daily.

Watch More DNews on TestTube

Subscribe now!

DNews on Twitter

Anthony Carboni on Twitter

Laci Green on Twitter

Trace Dominguez on Twitter

DNews on Facebook

DNews on Google+

Discovery News

Dr. Giovanni Fazio, from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory discusses the Spitzer Space Telescope. Launched on 25 August 2003, the telescope is producing an exciting new view of the Universe seen in infrared light. Spitzer is the fourth and final space telescope in NASA's Great Observatory series. It consists of an 85-cm telescope and three highly sensitive instruments capable of observing infrared light that allows astronomers to view regions of space invisible to optical telescopes. Spitzer's scientific results include the study of the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early Universe, understanding energy sources in ultraluminous galaxies, the study of star formation and evolution, observations of exoplanets and their atmospheres, and determining the structure and evolution of planetary disks around nearby stars. After a brief description of the Spitzer mission, results from Spitzer's extragalactic and galactic observational programs will be presented, showing many of Spitzers very spectacular images.

This lecture was the 2009 Smithsonian Secretary's Distinguished Research Lecutre

About 1200 years ago, Earth may have experienced one of the rarest and most powerful cosmic events a planet can be exposed to: a gamma-ray burst. If it did, well, let’s just say that we, as living things on Earth, are lucky it wasn’t worse.

Hosted by Caitlin Hofmeister
----------
Like SciShow? Want to help support us, and also get things to put on your walls, cover your torso and hold your liquids? Check out our awesome products over at DFTBA Records:

Or help support us by subscribing to our page on Subbable:
----------
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
Facebook:
Twitter:
Tumblr:

Thanks Tank Tumblr:

Sources:

Fay Dowker speaks at a Perimeter Institute Public Lecture on November 2, 2011.

Black holes are hot! This discovery made by Stephen Hawking ties together gravity, spacetime, quantum matter, and thermal systems into the beautiful and exciting science of Black Hole Thermodynamics. Its beauty lies in the powerful way it speaks of the unity of physics. The excitement arises because it tells us that there is something lacking in our understanding of spacetime and, at the same time, gives us a major clue as to what the missing ingredient should be. Theoretical physicists at Perimeter Institute and elsewhere are pioneering a proposal, known as Causal Set Theory, for the structure held by these most fundamental atoms of spacetime. In this talk, Professor Dowker describes black hole thermodynamics and argue that it is telling us that spacetime itself is granular or atomic at very tiny scales.

More Perimeter Public Lectures can be found at:

The most intense electromagnetic event known to occur in the heavens is the gamma ray burst. For many years, scientists have claimed that most gamma ray burst occur when stars run out of nuclear fuel then collapse to form a black hole, neutron star or quark star. However, a recently detected gamma ray burst has left astronomers openly baffled. Wal Thornhill weighs in.

Subscribe to Thunderbolts Update newsletter:
Thunderbolts Project Home:
Facebook:
Picture of the Day:
Electric Universe (Wal Thornhill):
Essential Guide to the Electric Universe:

Charles L. Bennett is the Alumni Centennial Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He does research in cosmology, the study of the large scale properties of the universe. He was among the leaders of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) mission and he led the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe space mission.

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy (WMAP) Explorer space mission mapped the remnant radiation from the Big Bang across the entire sky. From the patterns observed, scientists have deduced the age, history, contents, and geometry of our universe. From dark matter to dark energy, to the first trillionth of a trillionth of a second of the universe, big things have come from this small mission. Dr. Bennett will answer: what has been discovered? What mysteries remain?

Armed with state-of-the-art supercomputer models, scientists have shown that colliding neutron stars can produce the energetic jet required for a gamma-ray burst. Earlier simulations demonstrated that mergers could make black holes. Others had shown that the high-speed particle jets needed to make a gamma-ray burst would continue if placed in the swirling wreckage of a recent merger.

Now, the simulations reveal the middle step of the process--how the merging stars' magnetic field organizes itself into outwardly directed components capable of forming a jet. The Damiana supercomputer at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics needed six weeks to reveal the details of a process that unfolds in just 35 thousandths of a second--less than the blink of an eye.

Read more:

This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: ‪

Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast:
‪

Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on facebook:
‪

Or find us on Twitter:
‪

What would you experience if you jumped into a black hole?
Help us add subtitles to this lecture:
Click here to subscribe for more science videos:

Conventionally, physicists have assumed that if the black hole is large enough, the gravitational forces won't become extreme until you approach the singularity. There, the gravitational pull will be so much stronger on your feet than your head, that you will be 'spaghettified'. Now, a new theory proposes that instead of spaghettification, you will encounter a massive wall of fire that will incinerate you on the spot, before you get close to turning into vermicelli.

In this special Ri event, science writer Jennifer Ouellette and physicist Sean Carroll explore the black hole firewall paradox, the exotic physics that underlies the new theory and what the paradox tells us about how new scientific theories are proposed, tested and accepted.

Watch more science videos on the Ri Channel

The Ri is on Twitter:
and Facebook:
Subscribe for the latest science videos: / Our editorial policy:

Secureteam10 is your source for the best in new UFO sighting videos, information on the government coverup and alien activity caught on tape. Send us YOUR footage by visiting the contact links below, and help us continue the good fight for disclosure!
➨Follow Us On Twitter:
➨Facebook:
➨E-mail or private message us with your ideas & footage: [email protected]
➨Visit our online shirt shop and gear up with your own ST10 Tee!

Music: Spellbound by Keven Macleod
Kevin's website:

#HowTheUniverseWorks
Think of it like a cosmic ray gun. The energy released from a gamma ray burst is equivalent to a hundred trillion nuclear weapons going off every second for a hundred billion years. They can reduce planets to vapor.
Full Episodes Streaming FREE on Science GO:

Subscribe to Science Channel:


Check out SCI2 for infinitely awesome science videos. Every day.


Join Us on Facebook:


Follow Us on Twitter:

Lecture Date: Tuesday, May 21st. Silvia Bonoli, a post-graduate researcher with the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophyics and Cosmology, delivered this SLAC Public Lecture, titled Black Holes and Galaxies: A Love-Hate Relationship.

Bonoli's talk details how the supermassive black holes lurking at the hearts of most galaxies affect the evolution of those galaxies, and how the galaxies provide raw material for the black holes' growth.

Black holes do not spend their lives alone in empty space. It is now known that at the center of almost every galaxy there is an enormous black hole, with a mass billions of times the mass of the sun. This black hole pulls in and sweeps away gas from the center of the galaxy. This coupling of the black hole and the galaxy causes the pair to evolve hand in hand. In the right circumstances it liberates huge amounts of energy, giving rise to the brightest objects in the universe. In this lecture, SLAC astrophysicist Silvia Bonoli describes the torrid relationship of black holes and galaxies as each shapes the life of the other.

Bonoli joined Stanford University in September 2012 to work on connecting her theoretical studies of black holes and galaxies with data from large galaxy surveys. This talk encapsulates some of her research. Lecturer: Silvia Bonoli, SLAC

The third lecture in the 2011 Exploring Space Lecture Series featured Sean C. Solomon, the Principal Investigator for the MESSENGER mission and the Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Until recently, Mercury was the least explored of the terrestrial planets, visited only by Mariner 10 in the 1970s. MESSENGER flybys in 2008 and 2009 revealed terrain seen by spacecraft for the very first time. In March 2011, as MESSENGER went into orbit, it opened a new era of comprehensive observation and study of the innermost planet, and continues to contribute to our understanding of the nature of Mercury and why it is different from its planetary neighbors. See Mercury in a new light as Sean Solomon guides us through the latest images and results.

Presented as a live webcast on Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 8pm ET at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

For more information about past and future Exploring Space Lectures, visit

An out of this world event, Cosmic Quandaries, held at The Palladium in St. Petersburg at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 26th drew in an audience of nearly 800! With a one in a million chance of meeting one of only 6,000 astrophysicists in the world, audience members were lined up in order to have the opportunity to ask Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson a question on any and all galactic wonders they may have.

About St. Petersburg College:
In 1927, St. Petersburg College (then known as St. Petersburg Junior College) became Florida's first private, non-profit, two-year school of higher learning located in downtown St. Petersburg. Full accreditation followed in 1931 and in 1948 SPC became a public college.
In June 2001, SPJC officially became St. Petersburg College when Florida's governor signed legislation making it the first community college in Florida to offer four-year degrees. On Dec. 11, 2001, the college received the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools' accreditation to offer courses leading to bachelor's degrees.
In 2002, St. Petersburg College began offering courses leading to bachelor's degrees in Education, Nursing and Technology Management. The college's commitment to its two-year curriculum, which has earned it wide recognition and annually wins it high national rankings, remains as strong as ever.
Today, SPC has eight learning sites throughout Pinellas County and recently became the first college in Florida to offer a four-year degree in Dental Hygiene. This program's offerings augment its two-year program, which has been in operation since 1963. SPC added four-year degrees in Veterinary Technology, Public Safety Administration and Orthotics and Prosthetics in 2005.
College Accreditation
St. Petersburg College is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award associates degrees and to offer courses leading to bachelor's degrees in the following areas: Banking, Nursing, Business Administration, Orthotics & Prosthetics, Elementary/Secondary Education, Paralegal Studies. Educational Studies. Post-Baccalaureate Teacher Certification. Dental Hygiene. Public Safety Administration. Health Services Administration. Sustainability Management. International Business. Technology Management. Management & Organizational Leadership. Veterinary Technology.

SPC also offers access to junior and senior level courses for bachelors and graduate degrees at the University Partnership Center. The UPC partners with the University of South Florida, University of South Florida at St. Petersburg, Eckerd College, University of Florida, Florida State University, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, University of Central Florida, Florida International University, Florida A&M; University, Saint Leo University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida Institute of Technology, Barry University, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, Indiana University, and St. Petersburg College.

Max Tegmark, Professor of Physics at MIT, gives a grand tour of the universe, ending with a discussion of parallel universes. With the help of a cosmic flight simulator, he starts with a quick tour of our Milky Way galaxy, moves back through space and time to the Big Bang beginning, and then proceeds through the evolution of the universe, ending with a discussion of some of the big questions that concern modern astrophysics. This lecture was presented by Science for the Public and recorded on 12/13/11. View more lectures at:

Dr. Cameron Smith (Portland State University) delivers the third lecture of the 2014/15 Perimeter Institute Public Lecture Series, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Held at Perimeter Institute and webcast live worldwide on Dec 3., 2014, Smith's lecture explores the biological and cultural challenges associated with multigenerational interstellar space travel.

Perimeter Institute Public Lectures are held in the first week of each month. More information on Perimeter Public Lectures:

Join the conversation:
@Perimeter
#piLIVE

Renate Loll from Utrecht University's Institute for Theoretical Physics delivers a lecture on Searching for the Quantum Origins of Space and Time. The lecture was recorded at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, on May 5, 2010.

Gamma ray bursts are the most energetic explosions in the Universe, outshining the rest of their entire galaxy for a moment. So, it stands to reason you wouldn't want to be close when one of these goes off.

Support us at:
More stories at:
Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday
Follow us on Tumblr:
Like us on Facebook:
Google+ -
Instagram -

Team:
Fraser Cain - @fcain
Jason Harmer - @jasoncharmer
Susie Murph - @susiemmurph
Brian Koberlein - @briankoberlein
Chad Weber - [email protected]
Kevin Gill - @kevinmgill

Created by:
Fraser Cain and Jason Harmer

Edited by:
Chad Weber

Music:
Left Spine Down - “X-Ray”



If comics have taught me anything, it’s that gamma powered superheroes and villains are some of the most formidable around.

Coincidentally, Gamma Ray bursts, astronomers say, are the most powerful explosions in the Universe. In a split second, a star with many times the mass of our Sun collapses into a black hole, and its outer layers are ejected away from the core.

Twin beams blast out of the star. They’re so bright we can see them for billions of light-years away. In a split second, a gamma ray burst can release more energy than the Sun will emit in its entire lifetime.

It’s a super-supernova.

You’re thinking “Heck, if the gamma exposure worked for Banner, surely a super-supernova will make me even more powerful than the Hulk.”

That’s not exactly how this plays out.

For any world caught within the death beam from a gamma ray burst, the effects are devastating. One side of the world is blasted with lethal levels of radiation.

Our ozone layer would be depleted, or completely stripped away, and any life on that world would experience an extinction level event on the scale of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Astronomers believe that gamma ray bursts might explain some of the mass extinctions that happened on Earth.

The most devastating was probably one that occurred 450 million years ago causing the Ordovician–Silurian extinction event. Creatures that lived near the surface of the ocean were hit much harder than deep sea animals, and this evidence matches what would happen from a powerful gamma ray burst event.

Considering that, are we in danger from a gamma ray burst and why didn’t we get at least one Tyrannosaurus Hulk out of the deal?

There’s no question gamma ray bursts are terrifying. In fact, astronomers predict that the lethal destruction from a gamma ray burst would stretch for thousands of light years. So if a gamma ray burst went off within about 5000-8000 light years, we’d be in a world of trouble.

Astronomers figure that gamma ray bursts happen about once every few hundred thousand years in a galaxy the size of the Milky Way.

And although they can be devastating, you actually need to be pretty close to be affected.

It has been calculated that every 5 million years or so, a gamma ray burst goes off close enough to affect life on Earth. In other words, there have been around 1,000 events since the Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago.

So the odds of a nearby gamma ray burst aren’t zero, but they’re low enough that you really don’t have to worry about them. Unless you’re planning on living about 5 million years in some kind of gamma powered superbody.

We might have evidence of a recent gamma ray burst that struck the Earth around the year 774. Tree rings from that year contain about 20 times the level of carbon-14 than normal. One theory is that a gamma ray burst from a star located within 13,000 light-years of Earth struck the planet 1,200 years ago, generating all that carbon-14.

Clearly humanity survived without incident, but it shows that even if you’re halfway across the galaxy, a gamma ray burst can reach out and affect you.

So don’t worry. The chances of a gamma ray burst hitting Earth are minimal. In fact, astronomers have observed all the nearby gamma ray burst candidates, and none seem to be close enough or oriented to point their death beams at our planet. You’ll need to worry about your exercise and diet after all.

So what do you think? What existential crisis makes you most concerned, and how do gamma ray bursts compare?

Thanks for watching! Never miss an episode by clicking subscribe.

Our Patreon community is the reason these shows happen.

We’d like to thank

Gerry MacFadden
Mark Effinger

and the rest of the members who support us in making great space and astronomy content.

Members get advance access to episodes, extras, contests, and other shenanigans with Jay, myself and the rest of the team.

Want to get in on the action? Click here.

A lecture that was held at the Tel Aviv University
22.4.07

Death stars are in the final stage of life before they explode into supernovae and, occasionally, the biggest blast in the universe--the gamma ray burst (GRB). One death star, named WR104, lurks 8,000 light-years from Earth and some believe its GRB arrow is aimed directly at us. A death star galaxy named 3C321 is a terrifying vision of what could one day befall the Milky Way galaxy: a companion galaxy's black hole is hammering it with a constant blast of high-energy particles, wreaking havoc with its celestial bodies. Nearby, Death Stars Eta Carinae and Betelgeuse burn through their fuel supplies as they hurtle toward extinction--and possibly a violent ending that's too close for comfort.

Robbert Dijkgraaf's focus is on string theory, quantum gravity, and the interface between mathematics and particle physics, bringing them together in an accessible way, looking at sciences, the arts and other matters.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:


Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website.

Nucharin Songsasen and Paul Marinari of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute share little known facts and smelly stories about maned wolves.

Frontiers/Controversies in Astrophysics (ASTR 160)

The lecture begins with a question-and-answer session about black holes. Topics include the extent to which we are sure black holes exist in the center of all galaxies, how massive they are, and how we can observe them. The lecture then turns to strong-field relativity: relativistic effects that are unrelated to Newtonian theory. The possibility of testing predictions of the existence of black holes is discussed in the context of strong-field relativity. One way we might learn about black holes is through observation of the orbit of the companion star in an X-ray binary star system. Through this we can estimate the mass of the compact object. The lecture ends with an explanation of how astronomers find black holes, and how Professor Bailyn was able to discover one himself.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Supermassive Black Holes and Gravitational Waves
07:15 - Chapter 2. Strong-Field Relativity
17:01 - Chapter 3. X-Rays of Binary Stars
30:08 - Chapter 4. Finding Black Holes with X-Rays
46:43 - Chapter 5. Conclusion

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website:

This course was recorded in Spring 2007.

Current theories suggest that a gamma ray burst (GRB) caused the first mass extinction on Earth, about 450 million years ago.

This sequence depicts a red giant star, approximately 6000 light years from Earth, exploding in a supernova explosion. High energy gamma rays are emitting from the poles of the star, slightly in advance of the explosion, and travel in a beam across space.

We follow the gamma rays as they travel through space and overtake the camera. At near light speeds, everything would appear warped and in front of you, with objects directly in front being blue-shifted and objects behind being red-shifted. In this, objects behind the camera are seen along the edge of the frame.

Finally, the GRB hits the solar system, passing Jupiter and then on to the Ordovician period Earth, ionizing the atmosphere and destroying the young ozone layer. Global auroras are shown to depict this, but in reality, the event would likely be invisible in daylight, other than the sudden appearance of an extremely bright star. The Gamma Ray Burst itself would only last a few seconds to a couple minutes at most, but the supernova would be visible for several days or months, even in broad daylight. In fact, at only 6000 light years away, it would be brighter than the full moon, and possibly painful to look at.

The ozone layer would quickly be destroyed, turning into nitrous oxide, more commonly known as smog, which then kicked off a global warming period. Weather patterns changed, creating super hurricanes and eventually the planet's first ice age.


The show got a major detail wrong, saying that only a couple GRBs have hit the earth. In fact, an average of 2 of these are detected by satellites every DAY. All of them are from very distant galaxies, where they pose no threat to us. And those are only the ones that we can see since only about 10% of the stars out there have one of their poles pointed in our general direction.

This was done for the first episode of Radical 3D's miniseries, Animal Armageddon on Animal Planet.

Lecturer: Edmund Bertschinger
View the complete course at:
*NOTE: Sessions 6, 7 have no video.

License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
More information at
More courses at

From NASA Astrophysics and Goddard Space Flight Center. Every day or two, on average, satellites detect a massive explosion somewhere in the sky. These are gamma-ray bursts, the brightest blasts in the universe. They're thought to be caused by jets of matter moving near the speed of light associated with the births of black holes. Gamma-ray bursts that last longer than two seconds are the most common and are thought to result from the death of a massive star. Shorter bursts proved much more elusive.

In fact, even some of their basic properties were unknown until NASA's Swift satellite began work in 2004. A neutron star is what remains when a star several times the mass of the sun collapses and explodes. With more than the sun's mass packed in a sphere less than 18 miles across, these objects are incredibly dense. Just a sugar-cube-size piece of neutron star can weigh as much as all the water in the Great Lakes.

When two orbiting neutron stars collide, they merge and form a black hole, releasing enormous amounts of energy in the process. Armed with state-of-the-art supercomputer models, scientists have shown that colliding neutron stars can produce the energetic jet required for a gamma-ray burst. Earlier simulations demonstrated that mergers could make black holes. Others had shown that the high-speed particle jets needed to make a gamma-ray burst would continue if placed in the swirling wreckage of a recent merger.

Now, the simulations reveal the middle step of the process --how the merging stars' magnetic field organizes itself into outwardly directed components capable of forming a jet. The Damiana supercomputer at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics needed six weeks to reveal the details of a process that unfolds in just 35 thousandths of a second. The new simulation shows two neutron stars merging to form a black hole surrounded by super-hot plasma.

On the left is a map of the density of the stars as they scramble their matter into a dense, hot cloud of swirling debris. On the right is a map of the magnetic fields, with blue representing magnetic strength a billion times greater than the sun's. The simulation shows the same disorderly behavior of the matter and magnetic fields. Both structures gradually become more organized, but what's important here is the white magnetic field. Amidst this incredible turmoil, the white field has taken on the character of a jet, although no matter is flowing through it when the simulation ends.

Showing that magnetic fields suddenly become organized as jets provides scientists with the missing link. It confirms that merging neutron stars can indeed produce short gamma-ray bursts. At this moment, somewhere across the cosmos, it's about to happen again.

Space explorer Dr Charles Elachi, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explains how his team of engineers and scientists develop technology to explore space and find out if other life exists, in some form, at the 2014 IPENZ Pickering Lecture: Exploring The Unknown.
Held in Wellington on March 24, the lecture was also in Christchurch, Hamilton and Auckland where Dr Elachi discussed how his team landed the robotic rover, Curiosity, on Mars in 2012 and plans for future missions and technology to land astronauts on the red planet within the next 20 years.

NASA says its satellites picked up the biggest explosion since the Big Bang. It was a gamma ray blast that came from what scientists think is a star collapsing into a black hole 3.7 billion light years away. Patrick Jones (@Patrick_E_Jones) reports.

Subscribe to our channel:
Check out more videos at

Buzz60 is designed for the way we live now. Short, quirky video snacks that are a little sassy, and always smart. Buzz 60 -- and the Buzz60 channel on YouTube - produces all kinds of newsy video clips for web viewers who want more than just repurposed content. Our team is a diverse group of video journalists with dozens of Emmy awards, an authentic sense of humor, and a mandate to connect with viewers every day.

Like us Facebook:
Follow us on Twitter:
Add us to your Circle on Google+:

Gamma-ray bursts are the most luminous explosions in the cosmos. Astronomers think most occur when the core of a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel, collapses under its own weight, and forms a black hole. The black hole then drives jets of particles that drill all the way through the collapsing star at nearly the speed of light. Artist's rendering.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: