Neil deGrasse Tyson Unveils a Dazzling Preview of the New Cosmos

in Astronomy, Science, Television | July 27th, 2013

Sci­ence fans this week got their first tan­ta­liz­ing peek at the long-await­ed sequel to Carl Sagan’s clas­sic PBS series Cos­mos. Astro­physi­cist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who takes Sagan’s place in the new series, trav­eled to Com­ic-Con in San Diego last week for the unveil­ing of this new trail­er.

Cos­mos: A Space­time Odyssey will begin air­ing on the Fox tele­vi­sion net­work in the spring of 2014. As with the first Cos­mos, there will be 13 episodes. Accord­ing to the Fox Web site, “Cos­mos: A Space­time Odyssey will invent new modes of sci­en­tif­ic sto­ry­telling to reveal the grandeur of the uni­verse and re-invent cel­e­brat­ed ele­ments of the leg­endary orig­i­nal series, includ­ing the Cos­mic Cal­en­dar and the Ship of the Imag­i­na­tion. The most pro­found sci­en­tif­ic con­cepts will be pre­sent­ed with stun­ning clar­i­ty, unit­ing skep­ti­cism and won­der, and weav­ing rig­or­ous sci­ence with the emo­tion­al and spir­i­tu­al into a tran­scen­dent expe­ri­ence.”

The new Cos­mos is pro­duced by Sagan’s wid­ow Ann Druyan, who co-wrote and pro­duced the orig­i­nal series with her hus­band and Steven Sot­er. “This series is still about that same thing,” Druyan told reporters, “but we’re telling a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent set of sto­ries, estab­lish­ing the coor­di­nates, but then jump­ing off from there.”

As the new trail­er would sug­gest, the updat­ed series will be rich in spe­cial effects. Accord­ing to a sto­ry this week in Wired, the orig­i­nal series’ use of his­tor­i­cal reen­act­ments by actors will most­ly be replaced with ani­ma­tion in what direc­tor Bran­non Bra­ga called “a sophis­ti­cat­ed graph­ic nov­el-type style.” But the visu­al effects will be there only to serve the nar­ra­tive. “As humans, we like hear­ing sto­ries,” Tyson said in San Diego. “We have what I think is the great­est sto­ry ever told: the sto­ry of the uni­verse, and our place with­in it, and how we came to dis­cov­er our place with­in it. And final­ly, we have the meth­ods and tools to bring that to the screen.”

NOTE: All 13 episodes of the 1980 series Cos­mos: A Per­son­al Voy­age can be seen for free by fol­low­ing this link to Hulu. Alas, free view­ing may not be avail­able in all coun­tries.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read

Neil deGrasse Tyson Remem­bers His First Meet­ing with Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan’s Under­grad Read­ing List: 40 Essen­tial Texts for a Well-Round­ed Thinker

Carl Sagan Presents Six Lec­tures on Earth, Mars & Our Solar Sys­tem … For Kids (1977)

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Free Interactive e‑Books from NASA Reveal History, Discoveries of the Hubble & Webb Telescopes

in Astronomy, e-books, iPad, Photography | June 25th, 2013

OrionNebula

Ear­li­er this month NASA announced that the Hub­ble Space Tele­scope found evi­dence of a plan­et form­ing 7.5 bil­lion miles from its star. This aston­ish­ing dis­cov­ery chal­lenges all of our cur­rent the­o­ries about how plan­ets devel­op.

A few days lat­er, Hub­ble cap­tured images of two galax­ies merg­ing.

Hub­ble has been in orbit since 1990, col­lect­ing images with one of the largest and most ver­sa­tile tele­scopes designed for deep space. No sin­gle tool has done as much to advance astro­nom­i­cal pub­lic rela­tions in recent years.

Hubble’s devel­op­ment, launch and dis­cov­er­ies are the sub­ject of a new, free inter­ac­tive e‑book (best viewed on the iPad) that brings to life Hubble’s dis­tin­guished ser­vice as our eye on the uni­verse.

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For almost as long as Hub­ble has been in space, NASA has been work­ing on the next gen­er­a­tion space tele­scope. The James Webb Space Tele­scope will fea­ture a mir­ror three times the size of Hubble’s. Once launched, the tele­scope will trav­el far beyond our Moon. NASA’s free e‑book about the Webb Tele­scope reveals the prepa­ra­tion going on to get the new tool ready for take-off.

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Its large mir­ror and dis­tant view­ing posi­tion are expect­ed to give Webb’s images high­er res­o­lu­tion and sen­si­tiv­i­ty, allow­ing sci­en­tists to study the birth and evo­lu­tion of galax­ies as well as the for­ma­tion of stars and plan­ets.

The e‑books are writ­ten at a high school lev­el and can be viewed on an iPad using a free iBooks app. If you don’t have an iPad, no need to wor­ry. A non-inter­ac­tive ver­sion of the Hub­ble eBooks is also avail­able, as is one about the Webb Tele­scope.

You will find these books in our col­lec­tions, 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices and 200 Free Kids Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Web­sites & More

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Live: Watch NASA’s Cov­er­age of Aster­oid As It Buzzes By Earth

NASA Sends Image of the Mona Lisa to the Moon and Back

Leonard Nimoy Nar­rates Short Film About NASA’s Dawn: A Voy­age to the Ori­gins of the Solar Sys­tem

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Vis­it her web­site and fol­low her on Twit­ter @mskaterix.

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The Beauty of Space Photography

in Astronomy, Photography, Science | May 29th, 2013

So many of the images we see of out­er space are either cold and flat—a plan­et sphere sur­round­ed by scores of pin­point stars against the back­drop of black space—or they’re artists’ ren­der­ings.

The pic­tures fea­tured in The Beau­ty of Space Pho­tog­ra­phy are nei­ther of those. They’re more like con­cep­tu­al art: beau­ti­ful, mys­te­ri­ous, and intrigu­ing.

The video above is the lat­est episode of PBS’s Off Book, a web series that explores new Inter­net cul­ture. In this episode, the pro­duc­ers inter­view three astro­physi­cists, and they are any­thing but the pock­et-pro­tec­tor types. These sci­en­tists are artic­u­late, thought­ful, and pas­sion­ate about space and about pho­tograph­ing what they see through super-pow­er­ful tele­scopes.

Work­ing for dif­fer­ent insti­tu­tions, each sci­en­tist uses pho­tog­ra­phy as a major tool to study space. The images have func­tion­al val­ue of course, to assist with mea­sur­ing and doc­u­ment­ing find­ings. But there’s no deny­ing their beau­ty. Astro­physics also touch­es on philo­soph­i­cal ques­tions, so the pic­tures trig­ger a sense of awe that bor­ders on the exis­ten­tial.

The blue and pink swirls of cloud dust and deep spi­ral-shaped galax­ies in these pic­tures are breath­tak­ing because, as astro­physi­cist Emi­ly Rice says, we know what they are and yet they are unfath­omable.

The images are of such high qual­i­ty that they con­vey some of the depth and grandeur of space. The pic­tures seem to con­tain the unbe­liev­able immen­si­ty and allow us to focus in on just a small, beau­ti­ful piece of what is all around out there.

But that’s just part of the fun of this short video. Lis­ten­ing to the sci­en­tists talk about their work is like hav­ing an expert guide you through the uni­verse, a docent who’s excit­ed and edu­cat­ed about things that none of us can tru­ly com­pre­hend even as we gape at their beau­ty.

The oth­er sci­en­tists fea­tured in this short are David Hogg (NYU) and Zolt Lev­ay (Space Tele­scope Sci­ence Insti­tute).

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Find Cours­es on Astron­o­my and Physics in our Col­lec­tion of 700 Free Online Cours­es

125 Great Sci­ence Videos: From Astron­o­my to Physics & Psy­chol­o­gy

The Won­der, Thrill & Mean­ing of See­ing Earth from Space. Astro­nauts Reflect on The Big Blue Mar­ble

An Ani­mat­ed Visu­al­iza­tion of Every Observed Mete­orite That Has Hit Earth Since 861 AD

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Vis­it her web­site or fol­low her on Twit­ter @mskaterix.

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Carl Sagan on the Virtues of Marijuana (1969)

in Astronomy | May 23rd, 2013

Carl Sagan — he was an astronomer, astro­physi­cist, cos­mol­o­gist and great pop­u­lar­iz­er of sci­ence. He was also, it turns out, a life­long smok­er of cannabis. In 1999, and just three years after Sagan’s death, Keay David­son pub­lished Carl Sagan: A Life, a biog­ra­phy that made head­lines for reveal­ing how Sagan wrote an essay in 1969, using the pseu­do­nym “Mr.  X,” where he out­lined the per­son­al ben­e­fits of smok­ing mar­i­jua­na. The essay even­tu­al­ly appeared in the 1971 book Recon­sid­er­ing Mar­i­jua­na. 35 years old at the time, Sagan explained how the drug height­ened his sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence, gave him an appre­ci­a­tion for the spir­i­tu­al realm (“a feel­ing of com­mu­nion with my sur­round­ings, both ani­mate and inan­i­mate”), enhanced his enjoy­ment of sex, and allowed him to achieve some “dev­as­tat­ing” insights into sci­en­tif­ic, cre­ative and par­tic­u­lar­ly social ques­tions. The drug also gave him a new­found respect for art and music. He wrote:

The cannabis expe­ri­ence has great­ly improved my appre­ci­a­tion for art, a sub­ject which I had nev­er much appre­ci­at­ed before. The under­stand­ing of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high some­times car­ries over to when I’m down. This is one of many human fron­tiers which cannabis has helped me tra­verse.…  A very sim­i­lar improve­ment in my appre­ci­a­tion of music has occurred with cannabis. For the first time I have been able to hear the sep­a­rate parts of a three-part har­mo­ny and the rich­ness of the coun­ter­point. I have since dis­cov­ered that pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians can quite eas­i­ly keep many sep­a­rate parts going simul­ta­ne­ous­ly in their heads, but this was the first time for me.

You can read the com­plete essay here.

A quick foot­note: lat­er in life, Sagan advo­cat­ed legal­iz­ing med­ical mar­i­jua­na, as you can hear below. And his wife, Ann Druyan, who made sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions to the PBS doc­u­men­tary series Cos­mos, has since pushed for the out­right legal­iza­tion of cannabis. She served on the Board of Direc­tors of the Nation­al Orga­ni­za­tion for the Reform of Mar­i­jua­na Laws for a decade.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Carl Sagan’s Under­grad Read­ing List: 40 Essen­tial Texts for a Well-Round­ed Thinker

Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawk­ing & Arthur C. Clarke Dis­cuss God, the Uni­verse, and Every­thing Else

Hunter S. Thomp­son Runs for Aspen, Col­orado Sher­iff on the “Freak Pow­er” Plat­form (1970)

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Astronaut Chris Hadfield Sings David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” On Board the International Space Station

in Astronomy, Music | May 12th, 2013

Chris Had­field has spent the past five months on the ISS. And, if you reg­u­lar­ly fol­low our site, you’ll know that the media-savvy astro­naut has engaged earth­lings with a steady stream of tweets, a series of edu­ca­tion­al videos (see below), and the occa­sion­al enter­tain­ing rou­tine. In recent months, he has kib­itzed with William Shat­ner and even strummed a tune for Peter Gabriel. Now, before hand­ing over com­mand of the ISS to a Russ­ian cos­mo­naut, Had­field bade us farewell by singing a zero grav­i­ty ver­sion of “Space Odd­i­ty,” the song that helped launch David Bowie’s music career back in 1969. What could be a more per­fect pick? In case you’re won­der­ing, Had­field is play­ing a Lar­rivée Par­lor gui­tar, which he used to make the first album ever record­ed in orbit. We’ll even­tu­al­ly tell you more about that.…

 Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every­thing You Want­ed to Know About Going to the Bath­room in Space But Were Afraid to Ask

If Astro­nauts Cry in Space, Will Their Tears Fall?

William Shat­ner Puts in a Long Dis­tance Call to Astro­naut Aboard the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion

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CERN Physicist Explains the Origins of the Universe for Beginners with a Short Animated Video

in Animation, Astronomy, K-12 | April 17th, 2013

If you have kids, you’re going to get the inevitable ques­tion: Where did the uni­verse come from? And you’re like­ly going to take a long pause before try­ing to present the sci­ence of the big bang. Before you head down that path, know this: CERN physi­cist Tom Whyn­tie has cre­at­ed a new TED-ED video that explains, in three ani­mat­ed min­utes, how the uni­verse began, why it’s expand­ing, and oth­er basic phe­nom­e­na that con­cern cos­mol­o­gists and par­ti­cle physi­cists. Phew. By the time you’re done, you might be eager­ly await­ing a where-do-babies-come-from video. That’s hope­ful­ly some­where in TED-ED’s media pipeline too.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

200 Free Kids Edu­ca­tion­al Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Web­sites & More

Grow­ing Up in the Uni­verse: Richard Dawkins Presents Cap­ti­vat­ing Sci­ence Lec­tures for Kids (1991)

The Sto­ry Of Men­stru­a­tion: Walt Disney’s Sex Ed Film from 1946

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If Astronauts Cry in Space, Will Their Tears Fall?

in Astronomy, Physics, Science | April 11th, 2013

The astro­nauts aboard the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion work every day on all kinds of exper­i­ments, from work­ing with robots to prepar­ing for space­walks. But when they get a break, they often field ques­tions from school chil­dren and adults about life in space.

Com­man­der Chris Had­field recent­ly video­taped him­self demon­strat­ing a sim­ple exper­i­ment inspired by a com­mon ques­tion: If an astro­naut cries in space, do their tears fall?

On Earth, of course, it’s grav­i­ty that caus­es tears to roll down the cheek. In a micro­grav­i­ty envi­ron­ment, if an astro­naut is sad or gets some­thing in his/her eye, tears will cer­tain­ly well up, but there will be none of what Smokey Robinson’s tears made on his face.

Had­field, pos­si­bly the most social media-savvy astro­naut ever with more than 500,000 Twit­ter fol­low­ers, game­ly demon­strates that tears do pool under the eye but they make no tracks. Squirt­ing water into his right eye, he rolls his head around, caus­ing the pud­dle of “tears” to shift back and forth and even roll over the bridge of his nose.

Tears don’t fall, he con­cludes, so bring a han­ky.

Had­field is no stranger to demon­strat­ing, or dis­cussing, human bod­i­ly func­tions in space. Speak­ing before the Ontario Space Cen­tre a few years ago, he dis­cussed some­thing that you may have won­dered about: going to the bath­room in space.

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Vis­it her web­site: .

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60 Second Adventures in Astronomy Explains the Big Bang, Relativity & More with Fun Animation

in Animation, Astronomy | April 8th, 2013

Like many pos­i­tive terms, the phrase “big bang” orig­i­nat­ed as a pejo­ra­tive. Fred Hoyle coined the term in 1949 as a way of deflat­ing the con­cept of an expand­ing uni­verse. It stuck, even after Edwin Hub­ble showed that 13.7 bil­lion years ago, all of the mat­ter in our mas­sive uni­verse was indeed com­pact­ed into “one super­dense ball.” Astronomers have also fig­ured out that the vol­ume of the big bang was only 120 deci­bels, about the loud­ness of your aver­age rock show (though how there might have been sound with­out an atmos­phere escapes me). There is some irony in Hoyle’s dig: the “big bang” wasn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly big, and wasn’t much of a bang, but it hap­pened.

We learn all this and more in the video above from The Open Uni­ver­si­ty, and all with­in a minute, as the title of the series, 60 Sec­ond Adven­tures in Astron­o­my, promis­es. These amus­ing ani­ma­tions are very much like oth­er OU series we’ve fea­tured in the past: 60 Sec­ond Adven­tures in Eco­nom­ics; 60-Sec­ond Adven­tures in Eco­nom­ics: and 60 Sec­ond Adven­tures in Thought. (Find them all on iTune­sU here.)

The uni­ver­si­ty describes the new astron­o­my series like this:

Ever won­dered where the Uni­verse came from? Or more impor­tant­ly, where it’s head­ed? Voiced by David Mitchell, this series of twelve 60 sec­ond ani­ma­tions exam­ines dif­fer­ent sci­en­tif­ic con­cepts from the big bang to rel­a­tiv­i­ty, from black holes to dark mat­ter. The series also explores the pos­si­bil­i­ty of life beyond Earth and con­sid­ers why David Bowie is still none the wis­er about life on Mars.

Spend a few extra min­utes edu­cat­ing your­self with some more 60 sec­ond astron­o­my adven­tures below, or vis­it the com­plete col­lec­tion here on YouTube or iTune­sU.

Super­novae

Exo­plan­ets

Spe­cial Rel­a­tiv­i­ty

Event Hori­zons

Life on Mars

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Answers the Big Enchi­la­da Ques­tion, “Does the Uni­verse Have a Pur­pose?”

Mea­sur­ing the Uni­verse: How Astronomers Learned to Mea­sure Celes­tial Dis­tances Explained with Ani­ma­tion

The Hig­gs Boson, AKA the God Par­ti­cle, Explained with Ani­ma­tion

Demys­ti­fy­ing the Hig­gs Boson with Leonard Susskind, the Father of String The­o­ry

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