PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE
↓ More info below ↓

Carl Sagan’s famous words: “We are star stuff” refers to a mind-blowing idea – that most atomic nuclei in our bodies were created in the nuclear furnace and the explosive deaths of stars that lived in the ancient universe. In recent years it’s become clear that the truth is even more mind-blowing. Many heavy elements – includes most precious metals – were produced in an even more spectacular event: the collision of neutron stars. In fact, according to a recent study most of the Earth’s supply of these elements was created in a single neutron star merger that took place near our Sun’s birth nebula 80 million years ago before Earth formed.

Check out the new Space Time Merch Store!
https://pbsspacetime.com/

Support Space Time on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime

#theuniverse #astrophyics #spacetime

Hosted by Matt O’Dowd
Written by Matt O’Dowd
Graphics by Leonardo Scholzer
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Produced By: Kornhaber Brown

When I was in astrophysicist school they taught us that all of the elements of the periodic table between carbon and iron were produced in onion shells by nuclear fusion in the cores of very massive stars during the last phases of their lives. And that the elements heavier than iron were synthesized in the following supernova explosion. That latter process is well understood – the star’s dead core collapses and protons are converted to neutrons. The surrounding shells ricochet outwards, along with a layer of the iron and nickel core. The latter is blasted by a wave of neutrons, which get rammed into the escaping nuclei. Some of those captured neutrons convert back to protons and so elements all the way up the periodic table can be made. This is the rapid neutron capture or r-process. The rapid part is because neutrons are captured faster than nuclei can decay, making it possible to build very heavy nuclei.

Big Bang Supporters:

Anton Lifshits
David Nicklas
Fabrice Eap
Juan Benet
Justin Lloyd

Quasar Supporters:

Mark Heising
Mark Rosenthal
Tambe Barsbay
Vinnie Falco

Hypernova Supporters:

Chuck zegar
Danton Spivey
Donal Botkin
Edmund Fokschaner
Hank S
John Hofmann
Jordan Young
Joseph Salomone
kkm
Mark Heising
Matthew
Matthew O’Connor

Gamma Ray Burst Supporters:

Adrien Hatch
Alexey Eromenko
Andreas Nautsch
Bradley Jenkins
Brandon Labonte
Carlo Mogavero
Daniel Lyons
David Behtala
DFaulk
Dustan Jones
Geoffrey Short
James Flowers
James Quintero
John Funai
John Pollock
Jonah
Jonathan Nesfeder
Joseph Dillman
Joseph Emison
Josh Thomas
Kevin Warne
Kyle Hofer
Malte Ubl
Mark Vasile
Nathan Hitchings
Nick Virtue
Paul Rose
Ryan Jones
Scott Gossett
Sigurd Ruud Frivik
Tim Jones
Tim Stephani
Tommy Mogensen
Yurii Konovaliuk
سلطان الخليفي

Aerogels are the world’s lightest (least dense) solids. They are also excellent thermal insulators and have been used in numerous Mars missions and the Stardust comet particle-return mission. The focus of this video is silica aerogels, though graphene aerogels are now technically the lightest.

At one point Dr. Steven Jones literally held the Guinness World Record for making the lightest aerogel and therefore lightest solid. If you’re interested in learning more about aerogels, let me know in the comments as there is a potential trilogy in the works…

Huge thanks to Dr. Stephen Steiner and the crew at Aerogel Technologies. To find out more or buy your own aerogel sample, check out: http://www.aerogeltechnologies.com/

Thanks to Dr. Steven Jones and Dr. Mihail Petkov at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

And thanks to FLIR for loaning us the awesome high definition thermal camera. The footage is amazing! https://www.flir.com

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Donal Botkin, Michael Krugman, Ron Neal, Stan Presolski, Terrance Shepherd, Penward Rhyme and everyone who provided feedback on an early draft of this video.

Filming by Raquel Nuno
Animations by Maria Raykova
Drawings by Mariel Solsberg

Music From http://epidemicsound.com “Seaweed” “Swagger Stagger”

To Learn more about ExpressVPN, visit: https://www.expressvpn.com/spacetime

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE

We live in the stelliferous era. Somewhere between 10 and 1000 billion trillion stars fill the observable universe with light. But there was a time before the first star ignited. A time we call the cosmic dark ages.

Check out the new Space Time Merch Store!
https://pbsspacetime.com/

Support Space Time on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime

Need a Black Hole Refresher
https://youtu.be/vNaEBbFbvcY

#theuniverse #astrophyics #spacetime

Hosted by Matt O’Dowd
Written by Matt O’Dowd
Graphics by Aaron Havley
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Produced By: Kornhaber Brown

In astronomy we study things that are very far away. It’s a powerful challenge because even the brightest objects are almost impossibly faint when you view them from the other side of the universe. But there’s an up side. If the light from some space object took billions of years to get to us then we see that object as it was billions of years ago. In this way we can peer back in time and literally see the past in motion. In fact we’re able to see some of the first stars and galaxies to ever form. But if we look beyond, both in distance and in time, there is … nothing. Darkness. For the hundred million years or so between the formation of the first atom and the formation of the first star there were no light sources in the universe. These were the cosmic dark ages. It’s a period of cosmic history rarely discussed because it’s hellishly difficult to observe. Fortunately scientists are devilishly clever. So what do we know about the time before stars?

Special Thanks to our Patreon Supporters!

Big Bang Supporters:

Anton Lifshits
David Nicklas
Fabrice Eap
Juan Benet

Quasar Supporters:

Mark Rosenthal
Tambe Barsbay
Vinnie Falco

Hypernova Supporters:

Antoine Brugier
Chuck zegar
Danton Spivey
Donal Botkin
Edmund Fokschaner
Hank S
John Hofmann
Jordan Young
Joseph Salomone
kkm
Mark Heising
Matthew
Matthew O’Connor

Gamma Ray Burst Supporters:

Adrien Moyneux
Alexey Eromenko
Andreas Nautsch
Antonio Ruiz
Bradley Jenkins
Brandon Labonte
Carlo Mogavero
Daniel Lyons
David Behtala
DFaulk
Dustan Jones
Geoffrey Short
James Flowers
James Quintero
John Funai
John Pollock
Jonah
Jonathan Nesfeder
Joseph Dillman
Joseph Emison
Josh Thomas
Kevin Warne
Kyle Hofer
Malte Ubl
Mark Vasile
Nathan Hitchings
Nick Virtue
Paul Rose
Ryan Jones
Scott Gossett
Sigurd Ruud Frivik
Tim Stephani
Tommy Mogensen
Yurii Konovaliuk
سلطان الخليفي

I took a boat through 96 million black plastic balls on the Los Angeles reservoir to find out why they’re there. The first time I heard about shade balls the claim was they reduce evaporation. But it turns out this isn’t the reason they were introduced.

Huge thanks to LADWP for arranging this special tour for me. Next time let’s put the GoPro on the submersible!

The balls are made of high density polyethylene (HDPE) which is less dense than water so they float on the surface of the reservoir even if they break apart. They are 10cm (4 inches) in diameter and contain about 210ml of water. So the main reason they are on the reservoir is to block sunlight from entering the water and triggering a chemical reaction that turns harmless bromide into carcinogenic bromate. This effect occurs with prolonged exposure to bromate so regulators insist that levels be kept below 10 microgram per liter on average over a 12 month period.

Special thanks to our Patreon supporters! Join this community to help us keep our videos free, forever:
https://ve42.co/PatreonDEB

Thanks to:
Las Virgenes Reservoir for footage of initial shade ball dump
Euro-Matic for bird into jet-engine footage

Researched and Produced by Casey Rentz

Animations by Maria Raykova

Music from http://epidemicsound.com “Colorful Animation 4” “Seaweed”

And from Kevin MacLeod “Marty Gots a Plan”

This is an educational video about the science of water quality.

Learn more about Audible at: https://www.audible.com/spacetime or text spacetime to 500 500!

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE

Quantum computing is cool, but you know what would be extra awesome – a quantum internet. In fact if we want the first we’ll need the latter. And the first step to the quantum internet is quantum cryptography.

Check out the new Space Time Merch Store!
https://pbsspacetime.com/

Support Space Time on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime

Need a Black Hole Refresher
https://youtu.be/vNaEBbFbvcY

#cryptography #quantumcomputing #spacetime

Hosted by Matt O’Dowd
Written by Graeme Gossel and Matt O’Dowd
Graphics by Leonardo Wille
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Produced By: Kornhaber Brown

Quantum theory may seem like an obscure subject of questionable relevance to the average person. But in fact much of our technological world depends on our understanding of the quantum properties of the subatomic universe. And soon, perhaps very soon, we’ll be interacting with the weirdness of quantum mechanics even more directly – with the coming of quantum computing and the quantum internet. Quantum computing is a topic that’s that has been well covered, so we’re going to be talking about the quantum internet. Specifically quantum cryptography and quantum key distribution – the foundations of the prospective quantum internet. We may come back to quantum computer in detail – but for now let me show you why their advent will demand a quantum internet.

Special Thanks to our Patreon Supporters!

Big Bang Supporters:

Anton Lifshits
David Nicklas
Fabrice Eap
Juan Benet

Quasar Supporters:

Mark Rosenthal
Tambe Barsbay
Vinnie Falco

Hypernova Supporters:

Antoine Brugier
Chuck zegar
Danton Spivey
Donal Botkin
Edmund Fokschaner
Hank S
John Hofmann
Jordan Young
Joseph Salomone
kkm
Mark Heising
Matthew
Matthew O’Connor

Gamma Ray Burst Supporters:

Adrien Moyneux
Alexander Lazerev
Alexey Eromenko
Andreas Nautsch
Antonio Ruiz
Bradley Jenkins
Brandon Labonte
Buruk Aregawi
Carlo Mogavero
Daniel Lyons
David Behtala
Dustan Jones
Geoffrey Short
James Flowers
James Quintero
John Funai
John Pollock
Jonah
Joseph Dillman
Joseph Emison
Josh Thomas
Kevin Warne
Kyle Hofer
Malte Ubl
Mark Vasile
Nathan Hitchings
Nick Virtue
Paul Rose
Ratfeast
Ryan Jones
Scott Gossett
Sigurd Ruud Frivik
Tim Stephani
Tommy Mogensen
Yurii Konovaliuk
سلطان الخليفي

You can learn more about CuriosityStream at https://curiositystream.com/spacetime

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE

How do you take a picture of a black hole and what can we learn from it? Our first ever actual bona fide photo of a black hole, made by the Event Horizon Telescope and revealed to the world in a press conference on April 10th. Since then it’s got plenty of coverage, because … I mean look at it. It’s a freaking black hole. It’s black, it’s holey, it’s everything we hoped it would be. Now that the giddiness has subsided and I personally have stopped spending hours on end staring at a black spot, we can take a breath and actually look at the real science here and discuss exactly how a picture like this could be taken and what we can learn from it.

Check out the new Space Time Merch Store!
https://pbsspacetime.com/

Support Space Time on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime

Need a Black Hole Refresher
https://youtu.be/vNaEBbFbvcY

#Blackhole #astrophysics #spacetime

Hosted by Matt O’Dowd
Written by Matt O’Dowd
Graphics by Murilo Ceasar Lopes
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Produced By: Kornhaber Brown

So, how do you take a picture of a black hole? The beast in question is the supermassive black hole in the center of this – the M87 elliptical galaxy. It has an estimated mass of several billion times that of the Sun, which gives it an event horizon larger than the solar system. M87 is 53 million light years away, so resolving that black hole is equivalent to resolving a grain of stand on the beach in LA – if you’re standing in New York. By comparison, the Hubble Space Telescope would struggle to see a large watermelon over that distance.

Big Bang:
Anton Lifshits
David Nicklas
Fabrice Eap
Juan Benet

Quasar:
Mark Rosenthal
Tambe Barsbay
Vinnie Falco

Hypernova:
Antoine Bruguier
Chuck zegar
Danton Spivey
Donal Botkin
Edmund Fokschaner
Hank S
John Hofmann
Jordan Young
Joseph Salomone
kkm
Mark Heising
Matthew
Matthew O’Connor

Thanks to our Patreon Gamma Ray Burst Supporters:

Adrien Moyneux
Alexander Lazerev
Alexey Eromenko
Andreas Nautsch
Antonio Ruiz
Bradley Jenkins
Brandon Labonte
Buruk Aregawi
Carlo Mogavero
Daniel Lyons
David Behtala
Dustan Jones
Geoffrey Short
James Flowers
James Quintero
John Funai
John Pollock
Jonah
Joseph Dillman
Joseph Emison
Josh Thomas
Kevin Warne
Kyle Hofer
Malte Ubl
Mark Vasile
Nathan Hitchings
Nick Virtue
Paul Rose
Ratfeast
Ryan Jones
Scott Gossett
Sigurd Ruud Frivik
Tim Stephani
Tommy Mogensen
Yurii Konovaliuk
سلطان الخليفي

You can learn more about CuriosityStream at https://curiositystream.com/spacetime

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE

We’ve been failing to detect dark matter for decades. Finally, the latest failure to detect dark matter may have actually proved its existence. One of these is true: either most of the matter in the universe is invisible and formed of something not explained by modern particle physics OR our understanding of gravity is completely broken. The debate over which is true has raged for decades, but may finally have been resolved in an unlikely way: the proof that dark matter exists, and really is an exotic, unknown substance, may have come from the discovery of two galaxies that appear to have no dark matter at all. Today on Space Time Journal Club we’ll look at the papers that reveal this discovery:

Check out the new Space Time Merch Store!
https://pbsspacetime.com/

Support Space Time on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime

Need a Refresher to Fully Understand the Holographic Principle?
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsPUh22kYmNCHVpiXDJyAcRJ8gluQtOJR

#darkmatter #astrophysics #spacetime

Hosted by Matt O’Dowd
Written by Matt O’Dowd
Graphics by Kurtis Ross
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Produced By: Kornhaber Brown

The effect of dark matter was first noticed in 1933, when the legendary Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky noticed that the galaxies in the Coma cluster were moving too quickly to remain gravitationally bound within that cluster. He guessed the presence of “dunkle m aterie” – a dark matter invisible to his telescope but whose gravitational effect held the cluster together. As with many of Zwicky’s predictions – like the existence of neutron stars and gravitational lensing – this wasn’t taken seriously until decades later. The hunt for dark matter began in earnest after the early 70s when Vera Ruben, discovered that the rotation rates of spiral galaxies were too fast given the mass of their visible stars alone. They should throw themselves to pieces spinning that quickly – that is, unless, a gravitational force of unseen origin was holding them together.

Special thanks to our Patreon Big Bang, Quasar and Hypernova Supporters:

Big Bang:
Anton Lifshits
David Nicklas
Fabrice Eap
Juan Benet

Quasar:
Mark Rosenthal
Tambe Barsbay
Vinnie Falco

Hypernova:
Antoine Bruguier
chuck zegar
Danton Spivey
Donal Botkin
Edmund Fokschaner
John Hofmann
Jordan Young
Joseph Salomone
kkm
Mark Heising
Matthew
Matthew O’Connor

Thanks to our Patreon Gamma Ray Burst Supporters:

Adrien Moyneux
Alexander Lazerev
Alexey Eromenko
Andrewas Nautsch
Antonio Ruiz
Bradley Jenkins
Brandon Labonte
Buruk Aregawi
Carlo Mogavero
Daniel Lyons
David Behtala
Dustan Jones
Geoffrey Short
James Flowers
James Quintero
John Funai
John Pollock
Jonah
Joseph Dillman

Joseph Emison
Josh Thomas
Kevin Warne
Kyle Hofer
Malte Ubl
Mark Vasile
Nathan Hitchings
Nicholas Rose
Nick Virtue
Ratfeast
Ryan Jones
Scott Gossett
Sigurd Ruud Frivik
Tim Crookham
Tim Stephani
Tommy Mogensen
Yurii Konovaliuk
سلطان الخليفي

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE
↓ More info below ↓

We live in a universe with 3 dimensions of space and one of time. Up, down, left, right, forward, back, past, future. 3+1 dimensions. Or so our primitive Pleistocene-evolved brains find it useful to believe. And we cling to this intuition, even as physics shows us that this view of reality may be only a very narrow perception. One of the most startling possibilities is that our 3+1 dimensional universe may better described as resulting from a spacetime one dimension lower – like a hologram projected from a surface infinitely far away.

Check out the new Space Time Merch Store!
https://pbsspacetime.com/

Support Space Time on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime

Need a Refresher to Fully Understand the Holographic Principle?
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsPUh22kYmNCHVpiXDJyAcRJ8gluQtOJR

#holographicuniverse #holographicprinciple #spacetime

Hosted by Matt O’Dowd
Written by Matt O’Dowd
Graphics by Aaron Halevy
Directing by Andrew Kornhaber

The holographic principle emerged from many subtle clues – clues discovered over decades of theoretical exploration of the universe. Over the past several months on Space Time, we’ve seen those close clues, and we’ve built a the foundations needed to glimpse the true meaning of the holographic principle. We’ve moved from quantum field theory to black hole thermodynamics to string theory. We’ve made a background playlist if you want to start from scratch, and I especially recommend catching last week’s episode. But this is tough material, so let’s do a review.

Special thanks to our Patreon Big Bang, Quasar and Hypernova Supporters:

Big Bang:
Anton Lifshits
coolascats
David Nicklas
Fabrice Eap
Juan Benet
Justin Lloyd
Tim Davis

Quasar:
James Flowers
Mark Rosenthal
Tambe Barsbay
Vinnie Falco

Hypernova:
chuck zegar
Danton Spivey
Donal Botkin
Edmund Fokschaner
Jens Theisen
John Hofmann
Jordan Young
Joseph Salomone
kkm
Mark Heising
Matthew O’Connor

Thanks to our Patreon Gamma Ray Burst Supporters:

Alexey Eromenko
Andreas Nautsch
Antonio Ruiz
Bradley Jenkins
Brandon Labonte
Buruk Aregawi
Carlo Mogavero
Daniel Lyons
David Behtala
David Crane
David Schmidt
Dustan Jones
Geoffrey Short
Greg Weiss
Jack Frosch
James Hughes
James Quintero
Jinal Doshi
JJ Bagnell
John Webber
Jon Folks
Jonah
Joseph Emison
Josh Thomas
Kenneth F Leonard
Kevin Warne
Kyle Hofer
Malte Ubl
Mark Vasile
Nathan Hitchings
Nicholas Rose
Nick Virtue
Ratfeast
Richard Broman
Scott Gossett
Sigurd Ruud Frivik
Tim Crookham
Tim Stephani
Tommy Mogensen
سلطان الخليفي

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE
↓ More info below ↓

Have you ever asked “what is beyond the edge of the universe?” And have you ever been told that an infinite universe that has no edge? You were told wrong. In a sense. We can define a boundary to an infinite universe, at least mathematically. And it turns out that boundary may be as real or even more real than the universe it contains.

Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord!
https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime

Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements!
https://mailchi.mp/1a6eb8f2717d/spacetime

Check out the Space Time Merch Store
https://pbsspacetime.com/

#infinitity #edgeoftheuniverse #spacetime

Learn More About Dark Energy Here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

Hosted by Matt O’Dowd
Written by Matt O’Dowd
Graphics by Aaron Halevy
Directing by Andrew Kornhaber

Our universe may be infinite. In order to wrap our puny human minds around such a notion we like to come up with boundaries. For example we have the “observable universe” – that patch that we can see, and beyond which light has not yet had time to reach us. It’s boundary is called the particle horizon. Beyond it there exists at a minimum of thousands and possibly infinitely more regions just as large. Our observable universe is like a tiny patch of land in a vast plain. We define its horizon like we might build a little picket fence around our little patch – meaningless from the point of view of the plain, but it makes our patch feel more homey and us less crushingly insignificant.

Special thanks to our Patreon Big Bang, Quasar and Hypernova Supporters:

Big Bang:
Anton Lifshits
coolascats
David Nicklas
Fabrice Eap
Juan Benet
Justin Lloyd
Tim Davis

Quasar:
James Flowers
Mark Rosenthal
Tambe Barsbay
Vinnie Falco

Hypernova:
chuck zegar
Danton Spivey
Donal Botkin
Edmund Fokschaner
Jens Theisen
John Hofmann
Jordan Young
Joseph Salomone
kkm
Mark Heising
Matthew O’Connor

Thanks to our Patreon Gamma Ray Burst Supporters:

Alexey Eromenko
Andreas Nautsch
Antonio Ruiz
Bradley Jenkins
Brandon Labonte
Buruk Aregawi
Carlo Mogavero
Daniel Lyons
David Behtala
David Crane
David Schmidt
Dustan Jones
Geoffrey Short
Greg Weiss
Jack Frosch
James Hughes
James Quintero
Jinal Doshi
JJ Bagnell
John Webber
Jon Folks
Jonah
Joseph Emison
Josh Thomas
Kenneth F Leonard
Kevin Warne
Kyle Hofer
Malte Ubl
Mark Vasile
Nathan Hitchings
Nicholas Rose
Nick Virtue
Ratfeast
Richard Broman
Scott Gossett
Sigurd Ruud Frivik
Tim Crookham
Tim Stephani
Tommy Mogensen
سلطان الخليفي

I always wanted to know why film looked better than video. Moving electronic images have as long a history but were invented for a different purpose. This video was sponsored by B&H Photo: https://www.bhphotovideo.com

Huge thanks to:

Richard Diehl, Video Labguy https://www.youtube.com/user/videolabguy
https://www.labguysworld.com

Branch Education for awesome animations
https://ve42.co/BranchEd

Minutephysics for mechanical TV animations
https://www.youtube.com/minutephysics

Mark Schubin
Engineer and explainer, SMPTE Life Fellow
https://www.smpte.org

This is a video I’ve long wanted to make, about what makes video look like video and, up until 10 years ago or so, not as appealing as film. I grew up with the two technologies (film and video) in parallel and to me they always seemed like two ways of achieving the same ends: recording and replaying moving images. But their histories are quite distinct. Film was always a way to capture moving images for later replaying. Video started out as a way to transfer images from one place to another instantaneously. This dates back to the first fax machine, mechanical TV, live broadcast tv and ultimately videotapes. This history focuses on the early decades of video and not the more recent switches to chip cameras and solid state storage. Maybe that’s a story for another day.

Additional resources and references:

The Dawn of Tape: Transmission Device as Preservation Medium
https://ve42.co/dawnoftape

What Sparked Video Research in 1877? The Overlooked Role of the Siemens Artificial Eye
https://ve42.co/sparkvideo

Video Preservation Website:
http://videopreservation.conservation-us.org

Image Orthicon Tube:
http://interiorcommunicationselectrician.tpub.com/14120/141200335.htm

Film vs Digital
https://stephenfollows.com/film-vs-digital/

Eyes of a Generation:
http://eyesofageneration.com

Television in the US:
http://www3.northern.edu/wild/th100/tv.htm

http://www.classictvinfo.com

Music from https://www.epidemicsound.com “Seaweed” “Capture a Picture 1” “Colorful Animation 4”