How do we study the stars? – Yuan-Sen Ting
The city sky is, frankly, rather boring. If you look up at the patches of
murk between buildings, you might be able to pick out
The Big Dipper, or perhaps, Orion’s Belt. But hold on. Look at that murky patch again
and hold our your thumb. How many stars do you think
are behind it? Ten, twenty? Guess again. If you looked at that
thumbnail-sized patch of sky with the Hubble Space Telescope, instead of points of light,
you’d see smudges. These aren’t stars. They’re galaxies, just like our Milky Way. Cities of billions of stars, and more than 1,000 of them
are hidden behind your thumb. The universe is bigger than
you can see from the city, and even bigger than the starry sky
you can see from the countryside. This is the universe as
astrophysicists see it, with more stars than all the grains
of sand on Earth. By staring up at the stars at night, you’ve taken part in the oldest science
in human history. The study of the heavens is older than navigation, agriculture, perhaps
even language itself. Yet unlike other sciences,
astronomy is purely observational. We cannot control the parameters
of our experiments from lab benches. Our best technology can send
man to the moon, and probes to the edge of
the solar system. But these distances are vanishingly small compared to the yawning gulfs
between stars. So how can we know so much
about other galaxies, what they’re made of, how many there are,
or that they’re even there at all? Well, we can start with the first thing we
see when we look up at night: the stars. What we are trying to learn
is their properties. What are they made of? How hot are they?
How massive? How old? How far are they from Earth? And believe it or not, we can learn all of these things
simply from the light shining in the sky. We can decipher one kind of stellar message
by turning starlight into rainbows. When you look at a rainbow on Earth, you’re really looking at light
from our Sun being scattered through water droplets
in the atmosphere into all the different wavelengths
that make it up. And we study the light from other stars, we can create rainbows on demand
using not water droplets, but other specific instruments that
disperse light. When we look at the scattered
light from our sun, we see something strange:
dark lines in our rainbow. These lines are the characteristic
fingerprints of atoms. Each type of atom in the solar atmosphere
soaks up light at specific wavelengths, and the amount of absorption depends on
how many of these atoms there are. So by observing how much light is missing
at these characteristic wavelengths, we can tell not only what elements are
in the Sun’s atmosphere, but even their concentrations. And the same idea can be applied to
study other stars. Make a spectral rainbow,
see what’s missing, and figure out which elements are present. Bingo. Now you know what stars
are made of. But we aren’t restricted to just
the wavelengths that our eyes perceive. Consider radio waves. Yes, they can bring the Billboard Top 100
to your car, but they can also travel almost
unimpeded through space. Because they’ve come so far, radio waves can tell us the very
early history of the universe, from just a few thousand years
after The Big Bang. We can also study the infrared light,
emitted by colder objects, like the gas and dust clouds in space, and the ultraviolet light from the hot
stars recently born from those clouds. Studying different wavelengths
not only gives us a more complete picture
of any single object but also different views of the universe. For this reason, astrophysicists use
several different kinds of telescopes covering the spectrum from the infrared
to the ultraviolet to the X-ray, from giant radio dishes to giant
silver mirrors to space satellites, detecting light that would be otherwise
blocked by the Earth’s atmosphere. Astrophysicists don’t just see the billions of stars among
the billions of galaxies in the universe. They hear, feel and sense them
through many channels, each revealing a different story. But it all begins with light,
the kind we can see and the kind we can’t. Want to know the secrets of the Universe? Just follow the light.
One of the BEST Ted-ed animated lesson in a while. Thank you and congratulations.
Wow the animation for this video is incredible!
Brilliant presentation
just follow light . . . . .!
Most beautiful TED-Ed video I've seen
Note that images of other wavelengths uses false color. We can't actually get the qualia of seeing infrared, for example.
how do you create such animations
awesome..
Don't you dare hit the dislike button.
This was enlightening!
Without god, Eearth won't exist
Well, I regret so bad that i didnt study astro-physics
Very well put together. If I could get educated in every subject this way I would fucking love it :)!
The 4 people that disliked this video probably think the universe is 4000yrs old
Beautiful animation and ambient music. I could watch this over and over again.
Like we cannot see things in outer space without the right equipment, I want to believe that there are things we cannot hear in outer space. Not with human ears, anyway. Consider the dog whistle. Maybe earth is like a songbird in the forest of the universe, and the humans on the hiking trail can't hear us.
One of the best Ted-ed i've seen so far.
Beautiful video! <3
awesome
Wanna know the secrets of the universe? Just follow the light! I like that part haha
Loving that framerate.
The last sentence was just pure genius
2:25 Pink Floyd! 😀
OMG, this is one of the most amazing videos I've ever watched in my life! Congratulations!
2:25 Dark Side of the Moooon
How do we study the stars?
…where's all the life though!?
did you know and the Book of Enoch an angel named Cocobil taught man the study of stars and in this book he talks of 3 stars where the Angels took him and showed him the end of our galaxy but showed him many more heavens
Excellent amazing video! A lot of useful information!
Excellent
mind blow…….
what about dark matter? We can't see that through light, can we?
9 weirdo
Jupiter is on its way to becoming a star. It will burn in flames when it's collided with enough eventually. Wonder what the solar system will be like then. Could whip things around
These videos are amazing!
beautiful.
i like it 🙂
am so confosed from this video
Best video I have seen in a while
Great video!
See www.fieldtestedsystems/poster for a cool poster that shows how we understand and classify spectra.
and how do they study how far they are??
hey anyone do reply me… I have to ask something about the star which, I see daily In the evening by 6:00 pm… And I am eager to know what that is and to whom I should ask this, like which person and how to contact them.? can some please help me as soon as possible. thanks
Is there any parallel universe exist? And if this is true then what you think about Mandela effect?
The animation was amazing!!
this is best ted ed animation so far, I love the content and the narrator time to sleep now, thanks ted ed
Could you please make more videos about stars and constellations?
At 2:31 @gaypride
best video！！！
A great day to do it today in Vienna !
That’s why God said let there be light!
There are a few components to getting a good numerology readings. One resource I found that succeeds in merging these is the Numerology Secret Blueprint (google it if you're interested) definately the most helpful guide i've seen. Check out the unbelievable information .
Anyone knows a good documentary as good as this?
So how do we study stars ?
Wow
Spectacular
especially how we get to know the compo of stars
Can we turn rainbows…into an energy source and harness their power?
I love it !!
I love your stuff and your hardwork to teach us, thank you Ted ed.
amazing
very pretty video, but it does not explain
whywe study this, i am currently taking a fysics class and i think the astronomy part is the worst. because Why is this relevant in any way, so i believe the title remains un explainedسبحان الله
Beautiful animation
This is mesmerizing
Thx Ted-Ed, I love Astronomy! I hope you can make more videos about "ASTRONOMY"!
I'm discovering about the universe cuz I want to work at NASA! 😀
I loved that .
awesome information about earth & galaxy .
so how do we study stars?
im confused?
Interesting…
Light is the beginning ..
Wrong Chinese translation.
研究not学习
So we should follow the light when we are dying
damn, these video and its narration is like poetry
Geesh, I guess spectroscopy was a forbidden word?
Ok everyone, these concepts might be too hard to grasp, so be careful!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_spectroscopy
😉
you lost me after the big bang..
Mesmerizing video😊😊👌👍
Good thing i watched this. Thank you.
He brought me to the universe in just 4:45 mins …..
My words are not able to describe how brilliant and amazing your videos are
How can i mary the universe? Im in love with the astronomy wish me luck to be an astronomer
Do you want to learn the secrets of universe, just follow the light.
I don't quite get the "See what's missing" part. I need help😭
Stellar.
I little bit scared on what he said that "Just follow the light"
Thanks for creating such an amazing video .May "the stars" bless you 😳so you can keep making such awsome videos .Keep up the good work .👍
Whenever we go to provinces. I will always visit the shore, where there are almost no lights at all. And look at the sky to see stars.
At one point, I literally saw the images i see on google whenever i search for galaxy. “So what i am seeing right now is the edge of our galaxy.” I was totally amazed
Stunning visuals and narration too.
Just me or some point he using the cover of Pink Floyd .. the triangle with rainbow
"A little learning is a dangerous thing." – Long Duk Dong (Chinese for Carl Sagan)
"A little learning is a dangerous thing." – Long Duk Dong (Chinese for Carl Sagan)
.
By listening to Owl City
Beautifully explained.
This video touched my soul 💙💙💙💙💙💙💜💜💜💜💜💜🌞🌛🌝🌠🌟 Ted ed has all the answers to my questions ❤❤❤
Magnificence
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you
-neil d Tyson
So there's lots off different visual ways of discovering the stars but have we tried smelling our way through the universe yet??
Is it just me or is the video laggy?
Nice!
Respect from Lahore Pakistan
If the Earth is spinning at 1,000 MPH as it revolves around the Sun at 66,600 MPH while the Sun shoots through space at 450,000 MPH, then why haven’t the constellations changed in thousands of years? EARTH IS A FLAT & MOTIONLESS. Polaris Proves the Flat Earth too.
Scientia Nobis Benedicit