Tuesday April 3, 2001
13:00 Eastern
NEW EYES ON THE UNIVERSE
Keck Telescope |
Many astronomers and cosmologists think we’re in a golden age, a time when new telescopes and spacecraft allow us to see farther out in space and back in time than ever before. But, perhaps, with the new tools and techniques now being used or soon to launch, the best is yet to come. |
| UCLA’s Andrea Ghez describes how ingenious use of new techniques has enabled her to use Hawaii’s Keck Telescope to track stars whirling rapidly around the super massive black hole at the center of our Galaxy. | 
Andrea Ghez |
Alan Dressler |
Alan Dressler, of the Carnegie Observatories, describes what we now know about the expansion of the Universe and what the new Magellan Telescopes in Chile will soon reveal. Footage of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope shows some of Earth’s most powerful eyes. |
| But soon NASA will be launching a new spacecraft, MAP, which will look father back than any telescope, back to the Big Bang itself, trying to document the very first structures from which the earliest stars and galaxies were born. This sequence sketches some of the exciting opportunities awaiting today’s students if they choose to pursue careers in space science and astronomy, and some of the mysteries they may help solve. | 
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