There is only one Universe, and we are part of it. The Universe is unique; it is not infinitely old, it is not infinitely big. It has evolved from an extremely high temperature early state, expanding, cooling, and developing structures across different scales, like planets, galaxies and stars.

Join Purdue astrophysics Professor John Peterson as he leads SMAP students on a journey through significant turns in cosmology, the human endeavor to make sense of space and time.
Based on observations of stars, sun, moon and planets, he chronicles how ancient observers of the night sky had only their eyes to observe size, color, brightness, and scales of time and change.

Trekking ahead through more modern times, we learn about successive attempts to understand the workings of our solar system, from Ptolemy through Kepler, and the progression of more modern measurements of the likes of Hubble and Einstein to bring into focus the science we call Cosmology.

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Want to know more about Professor Peterson and his research related to the James Webb Space Telescope? Check him out here, just prior to launch,    • Astro Professor at Purdue - John Pete...  

Timeline
0:00 Getting started
0:45 What can you learn by just looking at the sky?
10:10 Ancient cultures
11:00 Angular size, sun, and moon and distance
12:45 Ancient interpretations - dome and flat Earth models
14:25 The concept of parallax and distance
18:00 The origin of the dome model
20:25 The geocentric model
22:40 The beginnings of making measurements
26:04 Ptolemy and Earth-centered motion
27:22 Copernicus and the Sun-centered model
28:10 Tycho Brahe - planet focused measurements
29:35 Johannes Kepler and planetary motion
30:50 Galileo's conclusive evidence
32:24 Olber's paradox
34:25 Edgar Alan Poe adds a clue to the age of the Universe
36:20 Edwin Hubble and the light from galaxies
38:00 The Big bang and expansion of space
40:40 Students' questions and answers