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Today we are talking about the life -- and death -- of stars. Low mass stars live a long time, fusing all their hydrogen into helium over a trillion years. More massive stars like the Sun live shorter lives. They fuse hydrogen into helium, and eventually helium into carbon (and also some oxygen and neon). When this happens they expand, get brighter, and cool off, becoming red giants. They lose most of their mass, exposing their cores, and then cool off over many billions of years.
29 • Crash Course Astronomy • 2015 • Astronomy
Astronomers make an extraordinary discovery when they uncover a cosmic mega-structure that's one billion light-years long, and now investigators race to decode the hidden forces that shape the most massive and mysterious structure known in the Universe.
S8E2 • Space's Deepest Secrets • 2021 • Astronomy
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, luminous in the night sky of the Southern Hemisphere, are celestial bodies shrouded in mystery, but recent observations have revealed some startling facts about them. They are survivors of galaxies formed in the early stages of the Universe.
7 • Cosmic Front • 2014 • Astronomy
For centuries the giant planets floated on the fringes of the solar system as distant objects in the eyepieces of astronomers. But in December 1973 mankind had its first close encounter with Jupiter. We chart the story of our discovery of these massive planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
3/8 • The Planets • 2004 • Astronomy
What is dark energy? What is dark matter? Well, if we knew exactly we would have a nobel prize – we know that they exist though. So what do we know about those strange things?
In a Nutshell • 2015 • Astronomy
Today Phil follows up last week’s look at the death of low mass stars with what comes next: a white dwarf. White dwarfs are incredibly hot and dense objects roughly the size of Earth. They also can form planetary nebulae: huge, intricately detailed objects created when the wind blown from the dying stars is lit up by the central white dwarf. They only last a few millennia. The Sun probably won’t form one, but higher mass stars do.
30 • Crash Course Astronomy • 2015 • Astronomy