21  Varying Length (12:00 - 20:00) Minute Programs
Grade(s):  9 - 12
Curriculum:  Astronomy

Universe: The Infinite Frontier - High School Edition offers an exciting look at the universe throngh the eyes of noted astronomers and astrophysicists from all over the world. Original state-of-the-art animation and computer graphics illustrate hmdamental principles and concepts of astronomy. It provides informed and provocative insight into astronomical and planetary research.

Teachers Guide:  The teacher's guide contains program information, teaching and video viewing tips ... and more.

Program Titles and Descriptions (No Timings Available)

1.   Astronomers' Universe
Experience astronomers' delight in stellar exploration and discovery with a tour through the varied and mysterious objects populating the cosmos.

2.   The Origin of Modern Astronomy
Meet the people whose ideas contributed to our understanding of the infir@te universe, scientists from the early Greek Pythagoras to modem-day Einstein.

3.   Light and Atoms
Astronomers idenfify several types of radiation wl-@ch transport information from the deepest realms of the universe.

4.   Astronomical Instruments
Using a vast an-ay of instruments both on Earth and in space, astronomers capture and analyze radiation from space.

5.   The Moon
Learn the theories behind the probable origin of our nearest celestial neighbor, and the reasons for its surface features and phase cycle.

6.    Eclipses of the Sun and Moon
Witness explanations and demonstrations of two of nature's grandest spectacles: lunar and solar eclipses.

7.    Mercury and Venus
Discover how planets take form from the solar nebular, focusing on the two planets closest to our sun.

8.    Earth and Mars
Examine Earth's atmosphere and interior, comparing the characteristics of Earth to our neighboring Mars.

9. Jupiter and Saturn
Explore the two largest planets in our solar system with close-ups of their rings and satellites.

10. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto
Learn how Uranus and Neptune are smaller versions of Jupiter and Saturn, and how little Pluto differs from the others.

11. Meteorites, Asteroids and Comets
These small bodies wander throughout our solar system and contribute tons of material bombarding the Earth every day. Some may have altered the course of life on Earth.

12. The Sun
Seen through a telescope, this dominant star in our solar system is not nearly as benign as it seems.

13. Properties and Formation of Stars
See how stars take form in an interstellar medium of gas and dust, materializing with mass, size, temperature and luminosity.

14. The Lives of the Stars
The fiery nuclear process inside stars generate most of the atoms found on Earth, but when no fuel remains for these processes, the stars usually transform into white dwarfs.

15. Deaths of Stars, Novae and Supenovae
Stars which don't retire as white dwarfs may explode into supemovae, spectacular events where the outer layers of the star eject violently into space.

16. Deaths of Stars, Neutron Stars and Black Holes
The remains of exploded stars can take form as rapidly rotating neutron stars, or black holes from which nothing escapes.

17. The Milky Way Galaxy
Visit our stellar neighborhood, a galaxy system which contains over one hundred billion stars.

18. Galaxies
Examine the giant star system called galaxies and their typical shapes: spiral, elliptical and irregular.

19. Peculiar Galaxies
Quasars and radio galaxies leave astronomers askina why these systems en@t huge amounts of non-visible radio energy.

20. Cosmology
Consider the modem theory of how the universe originated along with the notion that unseen 'dark matter' contributes to the total mass present in the universe.

21. The Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Modem technology allows humans to search for extraterrestrial life as never before.