Introduction to Astronomy: Crash Course Astronomy #1

Crash Course: Astronomy

https://youtube.com/watch?v=0rHUDWjR5gg
https://nerdfighteria.info/v/0rHUDWjR5gg

=====Intro (0:00) ===== But what exactly is astronomy? This isn't necessarily an obvious
thing to ask. When I was a kid, it was easy: Astronomy is the study
Hello, and welcome to Crash Course Astronomy! I'm your host, Phil
of things in the sky. The sun, moon, stars, galaxies, and stuff like
Plait, and I'll be taking you on a guided tour of the entire Universe. that. But it's not so easy to pigeonhole these days.
You might want to pack a lunch.
Take, for example, Mars. When I haul my 'scope out to the end of
(Intro) my driveway and look at Mars, that's astronomy, right? Of course!
But what about the rovers there? Those machines aren't doing
Over the course of this series we'll explore planets, stars, black
astronomy, surely. They’re doing chemistry, geology, hydrology,
holes, galaxies, subatomic particles, and even the eventual fate of
petrology... everything but astronomy!
the Universe itself.
So nowadays, what's astronomy? I'd say it's still studying stuff in the
sky, but it’s branched out quite a bit from there. Borders between it
and other fields of science are fuzzy, a theme I’ll be hitting on
===== Science (0:30)===== several times over this series. Humans might like firm, delineated
boundaries between things, but nature isn’t so picky.
But before we step into space, let's take a step back. I wanna talk to
you about science. There are lots of definitions of science, but I'll ===== Focus On: Astronomers (3:50) =====
say that it's a body of knowledge, and also a method of how we
learned that knowledge. Science tells us that stuff we know may not
be perfectly known; it may be partly or entirely wrong. We need to And that brings us to our first edition of “Focus On”
watch the Universe, see how it behaves, make guesses about why
it's doing what it's doing, and then try to think of ways to support or This week’s topic: Astronomers! Who are we? What do we do?
disprove those ideas. That last part is important. Science must be,
above all else, honest if we really want to get to the bottom of I used to look through telescopes for a living, or at least study the
things. data that came from detectors strapped onto them. But now I talk
and write and make videos about astronomy, and relegate my
Understanding that our understanding might be wrong is essential, viewing to my personal backyard telescope. But I still consider
and trying to figure out the ways we may be mistaken is the only myself an astronomer, so that should give you an idea that there's a
way that science can help us find our way to the truth, or at least lot of wiggle room in the profession.
the nearest approximation to it. Science learns. We meander a bit
as we use it, but in the long run we get ever closer to understanding In fact, when I worked on Hubble Space Telescope, I was actually
reality, and that is the strength of science. And it’s all around us! hired as... a programmer! I coded in the language used by the folks
Whether you know it or not, you're soaking in science. You're a helping to build and calibrate a camera that was due to launch into
primate. You have mass. Mitochondria in your cells are generating space and be installed onto Hubble by an astronaut.
energy. Presumably, you’re breathing oxygen. But astronomy is
different. It’s still science, of course, but astronomy puts you in your Once the data from that camera are taken and analyzed, you have
place. to know what to do with them. Do the observations fit the physical
model of how stars blow up, or how galaxies form, or the way gas
flows through space? Well, you better know your math and physics,
because that’s how we test our hypotheses. And someone who
does that is generally called an astrophysicist.
===== Our Place (1:43) =====
Because of astronomy, I know we're standing on a sphere of mostly Of course, those telescopes and detectors don’t create
molten rock and metal 13,000 kilometers across, with a fuzzy themselves. We need engineers to design and build them and
atmosphere about 100 km high, surrounded by a magnetic field that technicians to use them. Most astronomers don’t actually use the
protects us from the onslaught of subatomic particles from the Sun telescopes themselves anymore; someone who’s trained in their
150 million km away, which is also flooding space with light that specific use does that for them. Some of those instruments go into
reaches across space, to illuminate the planets, asteroids, dust, and space, and some go to other worlds, like the Moon and Mars. We
comets, racing out past the Kuiper Belt, through the Oort Cloud, into need astronomers and engineers and software programmers who
interstellar space, past the nearest stars, which orbit along with gas can build those, too.
clouds and dust lanes in a gigantic spiral galaxy we call the Milky
Way that has a supermassive black hole in its center, and is And then, at the end of all this, we need people to tell you all about
surrounded by 150 globular clusters and a halo of dark matter and it. Teachers, professors, writers, video makers, even artists.
dwarf galaxies, some of which it’s eating, all of which can be seen
by other galaxies in our Local Group like Andromeda and So I’ll tell you what: If you have an interest in the Universe, if you
Triangulum, and our group is on the outskirts of the Virgo galaxy love to look up at the stars, if you crave to understand what’s going
cluster, which is part of the Virgo supercluster, which is just one of on literally over your head, then who am I to say you’re not an
many other gigantic structures that stretch most of the way across astronomer?
the visible Universe, which is 90 billion light years across and
expanding every day, even faster today than yesterday due to
mysterious dark energy, and even all that might be part of an
infinitely larger multiverse that extends forever both in time and
space. ===== History of Astronomy (5:28) =====
However you define astronomy, humans have been looking up at
See? Astronomy puts you in your place. the sky for as long as we’ve been humans. Certainly ancient
people noticed the big glowy ball in the sky, and how it lit everything
===== What is Astronomy? (2:59) ===== up while it was up, and how it got dark when it was gone. The other,
fainter glowy thing tried, but wasn’t quite as good at lighting up the

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 Introduction to Astronomy: Crash Course Astronomy #1
Crash Course: Astronomy
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0rHUDWjR5gg
https://nerdfighteria.info/v/0rHUDWjR5gg

night. They probably took that sort of thing pretty seriously. They But a few centuries ago things changed. Although he wasn't the
probably also noticed that when certain stars appeared in the sky, first, the Polish mathematician and astronomer Copernicus came up
the weather started getting warmer and the days longer, and when with the idea that the sun was the center of the solar system, not
other stars were seen, the weather would get colder and daytime the Earth. His ideas had problems, which we’ll get to in a later
shorten. episode, but it did an incrementally better job than geocentrism.

And when humans settled down, discovered agriculture, and started And then along came Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, who
farming, noticing those patterns in the sky would have had an even modified that system, making it even better. Then Isaac Newton -
greater impact. It told them when to plant seeds, and when to oh, Newton - he invented calculus partly to help him understand the
harvest. way objects moved in space. Over time, our math got better, our
physics got better, and our understanding grew. Applied math was
The cycles in the sky became pretty important. So important that it a revolution in astronomy, and then the use of telescopes was
wasn’t hard to imagine gods up there, looking down on us weak another. Galileo didn't invent the telescope, by the way, but made
and ridiculous humans, interfering with our lives. Surely if the stars them better; Newton invented a new kind that was even better than
tell us when to plant, and control the weather, seasons, and the that, and we’ve run with the idea from there.
length of the day, they control our lives too... and astrology was
born. Then, about a century ago, came another revolution: photography.
We could capture much fainter objects on glass plates sprayed with
Astrology literally means “study of the stars”; as a word it’s been light-sensitive chemicals, which revealed stars otherwise invisible to
used before science became a formal method of studying nature. It us, details in galaxies, beautiful clouds of gas and dust in space.
irks me a bit, since it got the good name, and now we’re stuck with
“astronomy,” which means “law or culture of the stars." That’s not And then in the latter half of the last century, digital detectors were
really what we do! But what the heck. Words change meaning over invented, which were even more sensitive than film. We could use
time, and now it’s pretty well understood that astronomy is science, computers to directly analyze observations, and our knowledge
and astrology... isn't. leaped again. When these were coupled with telescopes sent in
orbit around the Earth - where our roiling and boiling atmosphere
Millennia ago, astrology was as close to science as you got. It had doesn’t blur out observations - we began yet another revolution.
some of the flavors of science: astrologers observed the skies,
made predictions about how it would affect people, and then those
people would provide evidence for it by swearing up and down it
worked. The thing is, it really didn't; the fault of astrology lies in
ourselves and not our stars. People tend to remember the hits and ===== Astronomy Today (10:26) =====
forget the misses when predictions are made, which is why they And where are we now?
sometimes sit in casinos pumping nickels into machines that are in
proven to be nothing more than a method for reducing the number We've come such a long way! What questions can we routinely ask
of nickels you have. that our ancestors would not have dared, what statements made
with a pretty good degree of certainty?
But astrology led to people to really study the sky, and find the
patterns there, which led to a more rigorous understanding of how Think on this: The lights in the sky are stars! There are other
things worked in the heavenly vault. worlds. We take the idea of looking for life on alien planets
seriously, and spend billions of dollars doing it. Our galaxy is one of
It wasn't overnight, of course. This took centuries. Before the a hundred billion others. We can only directly see 4% of the
invention of the telescope, keen observers built all sorts of odd and Universe. Stars explode, and when they do they create the stuff of
wonderful devices to measure the heavens, and in fact it was life: the iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones, the phosphorus
before the telescope was first turned to the sky that a huge that is the backbone of our DNA. The most common kind of star in
revolution in astronomy took place. the Universe is so faint you can't even see it without a telescope.
Our solar system is filled to overflowing with worlds more bizarre
It is patently obvious that the ground you stand on is fixed, rooted if than we could have dreamed.
you will, and the skies turn above us. The sun rises, the sun sets.
The moon rises and sets, the stars themselves wheel around the Nature has more imagination than we do. It comes up with some
sky at night. Clearly, the Earth is motionless, and the sky is what is nutty stuff. We’re clever too, we big-brained apes. We’ve learned a
actually moving. In fact, if you think about it, geocentrism makes lot but there’s still a long way to go.
perfect sense that all the objects in the sky revolve about the Earth,
and are fixed to a series of nested spheres, some of which are So, with that, I think we’re ready. Let’s explore the universe.
transparent, maybe made of crystal, which spin once per day. The
stars may just be holes in otherwise opaque sphere, letting sunlight
through.

Sounds silly to you, doesn’t it? ===== Recap (11:29) =====

Today you learned what astronomy is, and that astronomers aren’t
Well, here’s the thing: If you don’t have today’s modern just people who operate telescopes, but include mathematicians,
understanding of how the cosmos works, this whole multiple-shells- engineers, technicians, programmers, and even artists. We also
of-things-in-the-sky thing actually does make sense. It explains a lot wrapped up with a quick history of the origins and development of
of what's going on over your head, and if it was good enough for astronomy, from ancient observers to the Hubble Space
Plato, Aristotle, and Ptolemy, then by god it was good enough for Telescope.
you. And speaking of which, it was endorsed by the major religions
of the time, so maybe it's better if you just nod and agree and don’t
think about it too hard.

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 Introduction to Astronomy: Crash Course Astronomy #1
Crash Course: Astronomy
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0rHUDWjR5gg
https://nerdfighteria.info/v/0rHUDWjR5gg

===== Credits (11:46) =====

Crash Course is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios.
This episode was written by me, Phil Plait. The script was edited by
Blake de Pastino, and our consultant is Dr. Michelle Thaller. It was
co-directed by Nicholas Jenkins and Michael Aranda, and the
graphics team is Thought Café.

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