Astronomy Minute

A brief description of what constitutes and astronomical observatory with a few examples in the real world that you have probably heard of.

A brief description of the philosophical concept known as Occam's Razor, which asserts that “the simplest explanation of a particular natural phenomenon is usually the correct one.”

A brief description of why the Webb Telescope is optimized to observe infrared light. Hint: it has to do with the four main science areas that it will be studying: “Other Worlds,” “Star Lifecycle,” “Galaxies Over Time,” and “Early Universe.”

A brief description of the four main science goals of the James Webb Space Telescope - “Other Worlds,” “Star Lifecycle,” “Galaxies Over Time,” and “Early Universe.”

A brief description of the James Webb Space Telescope and how it's different than the Hubble Space Telescope.

A brief description of the Hubble Space Telescope and its scientific capabilities.

A brief description of the two primary reasons why we send telescopes into space to observe and study celestial objects.

A brief historical summary of what we mean when we refer to "Spiral Nebulae."

A brief description of what will happen if the universe stops expanding and collapses back on itself - this is known as the Big Crunch.

A brief description of the basic properties of astronomical objects such as mass, radius, distance, luminosity, and temperature.

A brief description of the Local Group of galaxies which contains the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy, and dozens of dwarf galaxies all gravitationally bound to each other.

A brief description of what scientists mean when they say we "know" something.

A brief description of the structure of atoms - how they are mostly empty space - and why the everyday objects you use don't collapse and fall in on themselves.

A brief description of what we mean when we talk about interacting galaxies.

A brief description of nuclear fusion, which is the process by which stars produce light so that they can shine.

A brief description of giant molecular clouds and why they are important for stars.

A brief description of the observational evidence we have supporting our assertion that the Milky Way galaxy is spiral in shape.

A brief description of the 21 centimeter radiation (light) that the Hydrogen atom emits and the mechanism behind this emission.

A brief description of what astronomers mean when they say that "all pulsars are neutron stars but not all neutron stars are pulsars."

A brief description of neutron stars, which are essentially the end state of massive stars some of which become pulsars.