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Astronomy Videos 13 videos

What is a Parsec?
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We’re pretty sure that a parsec is the amount of time it takes a golfer to make par, but just in case we’re wrong, let’s check out this video.

Comets, Asteroids, and Meteors
788 Views

Comets know how to give you the cold shoulder, asteroids love to hang out, and meteors just like to show off. Space stuff: it’s just like us.

Welcome to Astronomy
1123 Views

Let's find “the answer to life, the universe and everything.” How, you ask? By reading the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and binge watchin...

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Astronomy: What is a Quasar? 330 Views


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Description:

Check out this video to learn about Quasars and black holes. But don't stand too close...we've lost a few too many Shmoopers that way...


Transcript

00:01

We speak student!

00:03

Astronomy Part Seven

00:05

What is a Quasar?

00:08

[ bird caws ]

00:08

What is a quasar?

00:11

A quasar is actually a black hole.

00:14

Oh.

00:14

It's just a black hole with a very cool environment

00:19

around it of all of this stuff that's kind of --

00:22

So, black holes, they rotate.

00:24

Most of them do.

00:25

And -- Everything in space rotates, right?

00:28

So they rotate. And when they do this, they --

00:31

They're sucking things in

00:33

and they're rotating,

00:34

and so you kind of get this cloud of debris --

00:36

this spinning cloud of debris

00:38

that forms around this.

00:40

And it's called an accretion disc,

00:41

because all of this stuff is accreting

00:43

onto the black hole.

00:44

And when this happens,

00:46

you can get a ton of energy

00:48

from stripping things apart

00:50

and the friction of things smashing into each other

00:54

and stuff like that.

00:55

And so these black holes,

00:57

which are actually totally dark,

00:59

have accretion discs around them

01:02

- that are the brightest objects in the Universe. - Hmm.

01:05

Wow. And they're bright just because

01:08

it's heat and compression

01:09

and it's just giving off the energy that then we see?

01:12

Yeah. If you can imagine

01:14

the Earth or something like that

01:17

being stripped apart,

01:19

how much friction and energy would be released

01:21

if you were to see that.

01:22

And that's kind of what's happening

01:25

with large portions of galaxies and stars and stuff like that

01:30

being swallowed up into this cosmic drain pool.

01:35

[ evil laugh ]

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