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How do we study the stars? - Yuan-Sen Ting

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Our best technology can send men to the Moon and probes to the edge of our solar system, but these distances are vanishingly small compared to the size of the universe. How then can we learn about the galaxies beyond our own? Yuan-Sen Ting takes us into deep space to show how astronomers study the stars beyond our reach.


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TED-Ed Animations feature the words and ideas of educators brought to life by professional animators. Are you an educator or animator interested in creating a TED-Ed Animation? Nominate yourself here »

Meet The Creators

  • Educator Yuan-Sen Ting, Amali Vaz, Gautham Narayan
  • Director Tolga Yıldız, Serin İnan
  • Composer Ismail Genc
  • Sound Designer Himalaya Sound
  • Script Editor Alex Gendler
  • Narrator Addison Anderson
    • See more
Additional Resources for you to Explore
Read how can be used to study the composition of stars, and to obtain the temperature of stars. Plasma in hotter stars moves more vigorously. This vigorous movement broadens the features in spectra due to the Doppler Effect. Visit this interactive applet and watch this tutorial for more information!

The following are some of the cutting-edge telescopes in different wavelengths. Click on the link for each and find lots of information about the science that is being done using these telescopes. To get an idea of how things seen through each of these telescopes vary, check out the Crab Nebula in different wavelengths. Wow!

Radio/Sub-millimeter:
• Planck
• Very Large Array
• ALMA

Infrared:
• Herschel Space Observatory
• Spitzer Space Telescope

Optical:
• Hubble Telescope
• Gemini Telescope

Ultraviolet:
• FUSE
• GALEX

X-ray:
• Chandra X-ray Observatory
• XMM-Newton
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TED-Ed
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New York, NY
10/07/2014 • 
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Customize This Lesson

Create and share a new lesson based on this one.

About TED-Ed Animations

TED-Ed Animations feature the words and ideas of educators brought to life by professional animators. Are you an educator or animator interested in creating a TED-Ed Animation? Nominate yourself here »

Meet The Creators

  • Educator Yuan-Sen Ting, Amali Vaz, Gautham Narayan
  • Director Tolga Yıldız, Serin İnan
  • Composer Ismail Genc
  • Sound Designer Himalaya Sound
  • Script Editor Alex Gendler
  • Narrator Addison Anderson
    • See more

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