Jupiter has its own personal solar system in miniature of 63 known
moons. Most are tiny, irregular bodies that are a combination of
captured asteroids and comets, but it is the 4 largest, the giant
Galilean Moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, that is of greatest
interest to us in this lecture. Each is a fascinating world of its own,
with a unique hi ... Show More
Nov 2007
Lecture 40: The Saturn System
Saturn is attended by a system of 60 known moons and bright, beautiful rings. Today we will explore the moons of Saturn. Among the highlights are Saturn's lone giant moon, Titan, the 2nd largest moon in the Solar System and the only one with a heavy atmosphere. The atmosphere of ... Show More
40m 44s
Nov 2007
Lecture 41: Planetary Rings
All Jovian planets have rings. We are most familiar with the bright, spectacular rings of Saturn, but the other Jovian planets have rings systems around them. This lecture describes the different ring systems and their properties, and discusses their origin, formation, and the gr ... Show More
42m 55s
Mar 2006
Lecture 44: Life, the Universe, and Everything (Life Part II)
How can we search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and what are we looking for? This second part of a 2-part lecture picks up where we left off yesterday by examining SETI, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, and reviews what we might look for and how. We will use thi ... Show More
45m 56s
Sep 2006
Lecture 2: Astronomical Numbers
Before we can begin our exploration of astronomy, we need to develop a
common language for notating large numbers, and introduce the basic
units of length, mass, and time that we will use throughout the quarter.
We will first re-introduce the basic metric system, explaining how t ... Show More
43m 29s