The Cosmos: A Beginner’s Guide
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- Episode
- Violent Universe
- Broadcast Info
- 2007 (29 mins)
- Description
- We accompany the Leicester team tracking down the most violent events in the Universe! On the frontline is the SWIFT satellite and what it’s looking for are Gamma Ray Bursts! If it finds one, teams on the ground are alerted and telescopes across the world are rapidly co-ordinated to capture the fleeting events... and they’re about to catch something remarkable. We investigate supernovas, learning that the glowing Crab Nebula is the remnant of an exploding star Chinese astronomers recorded in 1054! We learn about the ‘Super Massive Black Hole’ lucking at the core of our Universe, three million times bigger than our sun! We travel to California to discover how astronomers record the Sun’s changing moods and find out what impact its fierce outbursts have on Earth. We discover the moons violent beginning, study its craters to consider the aggressive bombardment it and the earth must have endured, then test out the European Space Agency’s plan to knock on asteroid out of the sky!
SWIFT satellite Gamma Ray Bursts supernovas Crab Nebula Super Massive Black Hole Sun’s changing moods History of the Moon asteroid deflection - Genre
- Science; Astronomy; Cosmology
How to cite this record
The Open University, "The Cosmos: A Beginner’s Guide". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/7759 (Accessed 11 Jan 2025)