Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy, 2nd Edition

Get a comprehensive overview of the grandest of all subjects-the universe-in this brilliant and fascinating course taught by one of America's foremost astronomers.

• By This Professor
• 01: A Grand Tour of the Cosmos
• 02: The Rainbow Connection
• 03: Sunrise, Sunset
• 04: Bright Objects in the Night Sky
• 05: Fainter Phenomena in the Night Sky
• 06: Our Sky through Binoculars and Telescopes
• 07: The Celestial Sphere
• 08: The Reason for the Seasons
• 09: Lunar Phases and Eerie Lunar Eclipses
• 10: Glorious Total Solar Eclipses
• 11: More Eclipse Tales
• 12: Early Studies of the Solar System
• 13: The Geocentric Universe
• 14: Galileo and the Copernican Revolution
• 15: Refinements to the Heliocentric Model
• 16: On the Shoulders of Giants
• 17: Surveying Space and Time
• 18: Scale Models of the Universe
• 19: Light-The Supreme Informant
• 20: The Wave-Particle Duality of Light
• 21: The Colors of Stars
• 22: The Fingerprints of Atoms
• 23: Modern Telescopes
• 24: A Better Set of Eyes
• 25: Our Sun, the Nearest Star
• 26: The Earth, Third Rock from the Sun
• 27: Our Moon, Earth's Nearest Neighbor
• 28: Mercury and Venus
• 29: Of Mars and Martians
• 30: Jupiter and Its Amazing Moons
• 31: Magnificent Saturn
• 32: Uranus and Neptune, the Small Giants
• 33: Pluto and Its Cousins
• 34: Asteroids and Dwarf Planets
• 35: Comets-Gorgeous Primordial Snowballs
• 36: Catastrophic Collisions
• 37: The Formation of Planetary Systems
• 38: The Quest for Other Planetary Systems
• 39: Extra-Solar Planets Galore!
• 40: Life Beyond the Earth
• 41: The Search for Extraterrestrials
• 42: Special Relativity and Interstellar Travel
• 43: Stars-Distant Suns
• 44: The Intrinsic Brightnesses of Stars
• 45: The Diverse Sizes of Stars
• 46: Binary Stars and Stellar Masses
• 47: Star Clusters, Ages, and Remote Distances
• 48: How Stars Shine-Nature's Nuclear Reactors
• 49: Solar Neutrinos-Probes of the Sun's Core
• 50: Brown Dwarfs and Free-Floating Planets
• 51: Our Sun's Brilliant Future
• 52: White Dwarfs and Nova Eruptions
• 53: Exploding Stars-Celestial Fireworks!
• 54: White Dwarf Supernovae-Stealing to Explode
• 55: Core-Collapse Supernovae-Gravity Wins
• 56: The Brightest Supernova in Nearly 400 Years
• 57: The Corpses of Massive Stars
• 58: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
• 59: Warping of Space and Time
• 60: Black Holes-Abandon Hope, Ye Who Enter
• 61: The Quest for Black Holes
• 62: Imagining the Journey to a Black Hole
• 63: Wormholes-Gateways to Other Universes?
• 64: Quantum Physics and Black-Hole Evaporation
• 65: Enigmatic Gamma-Ray Bursts
• 66: Birth Cries of Black Holes
• 67: Our Home-The Milky Way Galaxy
• 68: Structure of the Milky Way Galaxy
• 69: Other Galaxies-"Island Universes"
• 70: The Dark Side of Matter
• 71: Cosmology-The Really Big Picture
• 72: Expansion of the Universe and the Big Bang
• 73: Searching for Distant Galaxies
• 74: The Evolution of Galaxies
• 75: Active Galaxies and Quasars
• 76: Cosmic Powerhouses of the Distant Past
• 77: Supermassive Black Holes
• 78: Feeding the Monster
• 79: The Paradox of the Dark Night Sky
• 80: The Age of the Universe
• 81: When Geometry Is Destiny
• 82: The Mass Density of the Universe
• 83: Einstein's Biggest Blunder?
• 84: The Afterglow of the Big Bang
• 85: Ripples in the Cosmic Background Radiation
• 86: The Stuff of the Cosmos
• 87: Dark Energy-Quantum Fluctuations?
• 88: Dark Energy-Quintessence?
• 89: Grand Unification & Theories of Everything
• 90: Searching for Hidden Dimensions
• 91: The Shape, Size, and Fate of the Universe
• 92: In the Beginning
• 93: The Inflationary Universe
• 94: The Ultimate Free Lunch?
• 95: A Universe of Universes
• 96: Reflections on Life and the Cosmos