New Adventures in Infrared Astronomy
A lecture by Martin Harwit, Professor of Emeritus of Astronomy, Cornell University.
Infrared astronomy has revolutionised and transformed the way we view the makings of the Universe and our place in it. The advantage of infrared radiation is that it can be detected from deep within distant, dust-shrouded regions that are impenetrable to visible light. These new infrared observations now reveal the physical processes which took place in the formation of galaxies and stars billions of years ago.
These sightings are enabling astronomers to reconstruct the early history of the Cosmos, as it cooled to transform itself from a hot, blandly uniform fluid into the mass of colliding galaxies, exploding stars and newly born planets we see swirling all around us.