Understanding the universe: an introduction to astronomy

Part I: Disc 1. Lecture 1 A grand tour of the cosmos ; Lecture 2 The rainbow connection ; Lecture 3 Sunrise, sunset ; Lecture 4 Bright objects in the night sky ; Lecture 5 Fainter phenomena in the night sky ; Lecture 6 Our sky through binoculars and telescopes

Disc 2. Lecture 7 The celestial sphere ; Lecture 8 The reason for the seasons ; Lecture 9 Lunar phases and eerie lunar eclipses ; Lecture 10 Glorious total solar eclipses ; Lecture 11 More eclipse tales ; Lecture 12 Early studies of the solar system.

Part II: Disc 3. Lecture 13 The geocentric universe ; Lecture 14 Galileo and the Copernican revolution ; Lecture 15 Refinements to the heliocentric model ; Lecture 16 On the shoulders of giants ; Lecture 17 Surveying space and time ; Lecture 18 Scale models of the universe

Disc 4. Lecture 19 Light: The supreme informant ; Lecture 20 The wave-particle duality of light ; Lecture 21 The colors of stars ; Lecture 22 The fingerprints of atoms ; Lecture 23 Modern telescopes ; Lecture 24 A better set of eyes.

Part III: Disc 5. Lecture 25 Our sun, the nearest star ; Lecture 26 The Earth, third rock from the sun ; Lecture 27 Our moon, Earth's nearest neighbor ; Lecture 28 Mercury and Venus ; Lecture 29 Of Mars and Martians ; Lecture 30 Jupiter and its amazing moons

Disc 6. Lecture 31 Magnificent Saturn ; Lecture 32 Uranus and Neptune, the small giants ; Lecture 33 Pluto and its cousins ; Lecture 34 Asteroids and dwarf planets ; Lecture 35 Comets: Gorgeous primordial snowballs ; Lecture 36 Catastrophic collisions.

Part IV: Disc 7. Lecture 37 The formation of planetary systems ; Lecture 38 The quest for other planetary systems ; Lecture 39 Extra-solar planets galore ; Lecture 40 Life beyond the Earth ; Lecture 41 The search for extraterrestrials ; Lecture 42 Special relativity and interstellar travel

Disc 8. Lecture 43 Stars: Distant suns ; Lecture 44 The intrinsic brightnesses of stars ; Lecture 45 The diverse sizes of stars ; Lecture 46 Binary stars and stellar masses ; Lecture 47 Star clusters, ages, and remote distances ; Lecture 48 How stars shine: Nature's nuclear reactors.

Part V: Disc 9. Lecture 49 Solar neutrinos: Probes of the sun's core ; Lecture 50 Brown dwarfs and free-floating planets ; Lecture 51 Our sun's brilliant future ; Lecture 52 White dwarfs and nova eruptions ; Lecture 53 Exploding stars: Celestial fireworks! ; Lecture 54 White dwarf supernovae: Stealing to explode

Disc 10. Lecture 55 Core-collapse supernovae: Gravity wins ; Lecture 56 The brightest supernova in nearly 400 years ; Lecture 57 The corpses of massive stars ; Lecture 58 Einstein's general theory of relativity ; Lecture 59 Warping of space and time ; Lecture 60 Black holes: Abandon hope, ye who enter.

Part VI: Disc 11. Lecture 61 The quest for black holes ; Lecture 62 Imagining the journey to a black hole ; Lecture 63 Wormholes: Gateways to other universes? ; Lecture 64 Quantum physics and black-hole evaporation ; Lecture 65 Enigmatic gamma-ray bursts ; Lecture 66 Birth cries of black holes

Disc 12. Lecture 67 Our home: The Milky Way galaxy ; Lecture 68 Structure of the Milky Way galaxy ; Lecture 69 Other galaxies: "Island universes" ; Lecture 70 The dark side of matter ; Lecture 71 Cosmology: The really big picture ; Lecture 72 Expansion of the universe and the big bang.

Part VII: Disc 13. Lecture 73 Searching for distant galaxies ; 74 The evolution of galaxies ; Lecture 75 Active galaxies and quasars ; Lecture 76 Cosmic powerhouses of the distant past ; Lecture 77 Supermassive black holes ; Lecture 78 Feeding the monster

Disc 14. Lecture 79 The paradox of the dark night sky ; Lecture 80 The age of the universe ; Lecture 81 When geometry is destiny ; Lecture 82 The mass density of the universe ; Lecture 83 Einstein's biggest blunder? ; Lecture 84 The afterglow of the big bang.

Part VIII: Disc 15. Lecture 85 Ripples in the cosmic background radiation ; Lecture 86 The stuff of the cosmos ; Lecture 87 Dark energy: Quantum fluctuations? ; Lecture 88 Dark energy: Quintessence? ; Lecture 89 Grand unification & theories of everything ; Lecture 90 Searching for hidden dimensions

Disc 16. Lecture 91 The shape, size, and fate of the universe ; Lecture 92 In the beginning ; Lecture 93 The inflationary universe ; Lecture 94 The ultimate free lunch? ; Lecture 95 A universe of universes ; Lecture 96 Reflections on life and the cosmos.