Showing results for "The Star" in Science & Engineering

Astronomer Florian Freistetter has chosen 100 stars that have almost nothing in common. Some are bright and famous, some shine so feebly you need a huge telescope. There are big stars, small stars, nearby stars and faraway stars. Some died a while ago, others have not even yet come into being. Collectively they tell the story of the whole world, according to Freistetter. There is Algol, for example, the Demon Star, whose strange behaviour has long caused people sleepless nights.

Les Johnson takes you on a thrilling tour of the physics and technologies that may enable us to reach the stars. He discusses the latest exoplanet discoveries, promising interstellar missions on the not-so-distant horizon, and exciting new developments in space propulsion, power, robotics, communications, and more. But interstellar travel will not be easy, and it is not for the faint of heart. Johnson describes the harsh and forbidding expanse of space that awaits us, and he addresses the daunting challenges that we need to overcome in order to realize tomorrow's possibilities.

Astronomy expert Tom Kerss offers complete advice from the ground up, introducing the world of telescopes, planets, stars, dark skies and celestial maps, explaining the best ways to plan your stargazing experience and the key things to look out for on specific dates throughout the year.

Tristan Gooley shows how it is possible to achieve a level of outdoors awareness that will enable you to sense direction from stars and plants, forecast weather from woodland sounds and predict the next action of an animal from its body language - instantly. Although once common, this now rare awareness would be labelled by many as a 'sixth sense'.

Light of the Stars is science at the grandest of scales, and it tells a radically new story about what we are: one world in a universe awash in planets. Building on his widely discussed scientific papers and New York Times op-eds, astrophysicist Adam Frank shows that not only is it likely that alien civilizations have existed many times before, but also that many of them have driven their own worlds into dangerous eras of change.

Artificial light is everywhere. Not only is it damaging to humans and to wildlife, disrupting our natural rhythms, but it obliterates the subtler lights that have guided us for millennia. In this beautiful exploration of the power of light, Matt Gaw ventures forth into darkness to find out exactly what we're missing.

The stars and constellations are among the few remaining objects that appear to us just as they appeared to our distant ancestors. From anywhere on Earth, a person may view the celestial panorama simply by stepping outside at night and gazing upward. This nonfiction narrative presents the tales of the 48 classical constellations, compiled from literature spanning a thousand years from Homer to Claudius Ptolemy. These age-old tales have captured the human imagination from ancient times to the present.

In his compelling new book, Dr Arthur Turrell makes the case for cutting-edge new techniques in nuclear energy—innovations that would allow us to recreate the power of the stars on our own planet. Filled with the remarkable stories of the scientists and entrepreneurs who have dedicated their lives to a seemingly impossible dream, The Star Builders is an unmissable insight into the future of life—and space—on our planet.

We understand the stars at a much deeper level, not as legendary figures connected with constellations, but as engines of matter, energy, and the raw material of life itself. The Life and Death of Stars introduces you to this story in 24 half-hour lectures that lead you through the essential ideas of astrophysics - the science of stars. Your guide is Professor Stassun, an award-winning teacher and noted astrophysicist. He provides lively, eloquent, and authoritative explanations at a level suitable for science novices as well as for those who already know their way around the starry sky.

This course guides listeners through the sights of the naked- eye sky, wherein we directly witness the effects of the turning and revolving of the Earth, the artistry painted by the human mind using the sky and stars, and how the view changes with time and with our place on the planet.

Freeman Dyson is a world-renowned astrophysicist who dreams of exploring the heavens and has designed a spaceship to take him there. His son, George, a brilliant high-school dropout, lives in a tree house and is designing a giant kayak to explore the icy coastal wilderness of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

Eileen Collins was an aviation pioneer her entire career, from her crowning achievements as the first woman to command an American space mission as well as the first to pilot the space shuttle to her early years as one of the Air Force's first female pilots. She was in the first class of women to earn pilot's wings at Vance Air Force Base and was their first female instructor pilot. She was only the second woman admitted to the Air Force's elite Test Pilot Program at Edwards Air Force Base.

For most of human history, we have led not just an earthly existence but a cosmic one. Celestial cycles drove every aspect of our daily lives. Our innate relationship with the stars shaped who we are - our religious beliefs, power structures, scientific advances and even our biology. But over the last few centuries we have separated ourselves from the universe that surrounds us. And that disconnect comes at a cost. In The Human Cosmos, Jo Marchant takes us on a tour through the history of humanity's relationship with the heavens.

In Neil deGrasse Tyson's delightful journey through the cosmos, his fictional character Merlin responds to popular questions asked by adults and children alike. Merlin, a timeless visitor from Planet Omniscia in the Andromeda Galaxy, has observed first-hand many of the major scientific events of Earth's history. Merlin's friends include the most important scientific figures and explorers of all time - da Vinci, Magellan, Newton, Einstein and Hubble.

Are we on the brink of discovering the first ever evidence that aliens exist? Join astronomer Professor Alan Duffy on his search to answer this question, as he speaks to a new generation of alien hunters embarking on the greatest hunt for extraterrestrials that’s ever been undertaken.

Adrian West, a.k.a. the internet sensation VirtualAstro, will take you through the seasons, showing you exactly what you can spot in the sky throughout the year, whether you're in your back garden or sitting on an exotic beach somewhere! While you're learning how to spot constellations, meteors and comets, you will be switching off your busy mind, sitting still in nature and paying attention to the small details that make up the big picture of life.

Ancient cultures around the world spoke of a vast cycle of time with alternating dark and golden ages; Plato called it the Great Year. Most of us were taught in school that the dark ages were real but the golden age was just a universal myth. But new scientific evidence suggest this cycle of high and low ages may have some basis in fact. Now that the astronomical community has discovered that something massive is tugging on our solar system the stage is set for discovering the motion that moves us from high ages of enlightenment to low ages of darkness.

In 1869, a great mystery was born. As astronomers observed a total solar eclipse, for the first time they saw the faint glow of the solar corona, the sun's outer atmosphere. Measurements of a previously unknown wavelength that made up this solar light sparked hot debate among scientists, but it was another 60 years before they discovered that this wavelength was in fact iron being burned at a staggering three million degrees Celsius. With the sun's surface only 6,000 degrees, this shouldn't be possible.

The weekly astronomy podcast from the makers of BBC Sky at Night Magazine.

It was not easy being a woman of ambition in early 20th-century England, much less one who wished to be a scientist. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin overcame prodigious obstacles to become a woman of many firsts: the first to receive a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College, the first promoted to full professor at Harvard, the first to head a department there. And, in what has been called "the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy", she was the first to describe what stars are made of.