PickVidsBest Cosmology & astrophysics Videos
The 108 Cosmology & astrophysics videos here were recommended by different people across different months. Choose by who it is for: 10 introductory, 8 intermediate, 88 for a general viewer, and 2 for someone who wants the harder derivation. Most of them are an explainer. What they share is that one picture or analogy is used to supply a missing concept. Channels you will keep seeing include PBS Space Time, Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, Isaac Arthur.
The Fermi Paradox Compendium
Isaac Arthur surveys the popular proposed solutions to the Fermi Paradox in a 71-minute compendium.
Telescope Building with John Dobson
A roughly 90-minute film of John Dobson building a Dobsonian telescope step by step, including hand-grinding the mirror.
VLT (Very Large Telescope) HD Timelapse Footage
A timelapse compilation of the night sky above the Very Large Telescope at Paranal, Chile, using ESO photographers' footage set to music.
The Crisis in Cosmology
PBS Space Time explains the Hubble constant tension, in which two precise, independent methods of measuring the universe's expansion rate disagree.
Is The Alcubierre Warp Drive Possible? | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
PBS Space Time introduces Miguel Alcubierre's warp drive, explaining how spacetime itself could be warped rather than moving a ship through it, and whether it is physically possible.
Are Space and Time An Illusion?
A PBS Space Time episode hosted by Gabe Perez-Giz on the nature of spacetime and whether space and time are fundamental.
What Happens at the Event Horizon? | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
PBS Space Time explains what happens as you approach and cross a black hole's event horizon, using Penrose diagrams and light cones as the tool for understanding spacetime there.
Hawking Radiation
PBS Space Time explains Stephen Hawking's prediction of Hawking radiation and how black holes can emit radiation and slowly evaporate.
The Halo Drive
Astrophysicist David Kipping presents the halo drive, a proposed way to propel a starship to a good fraction of light speed by gaining energy from a black hole.
Why is the Solar System Flat?
A minutephysics explainer on why the planets orbit in a flat plane.
Do Events Inside Black Holes Happen?
A PBS Space Time episode asking what black holes really are and whether events can happen inside them.
'Oumuamua Is Not Aliens
PBS Space Time examines the interstellar object 'Oumuamua and the popular theories about it, including the light-sail hypothesis.
The Fermi Paradox: Dark Forest Theory
Isaac Arthur examines the Dark Forest theory, Cixin Liu's proposed solution to the Fermi Paradox in which civilizations stay silent and may destroy any that reveal themselves.
The Known Universe by AMNH #datavisualization
The American Museum of Natural History's film flies from the Himalayas out through the atmosphere and solar system to the afterglow of the Big Bang, using its Digital Universe Atlas four-dimensional map.
Leonard Susskind | "ER = EPR" or "What's Behind the Horizons of Black Holes?" - 1 of 2
Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind gives the first of two mini-lectures on "ER = EPR", the idea that quantum entanglement and wormholes are related.
Ptolemy and Homer (Simpson)
A short animation reconstructing a planet's looping orbit using Ptolemy's epicycles and deferents, with the epicycles tracing out the face of Homer Simpson.
Arcologies
An Isaac Arthur episode on arcologies, self-sufficient habitats that could house whole cities, on Earth or on harsh worlds.
Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter
A short Kurzgesagt animation explaining the Great Filter, the idea that finding alien life might be bad news because it implies something usually destroys civilizations.
Terence Tao on the cosmic distance ladder
Terence Tao and Grant Sanderson of 3Blue1Brown walk through the cosmic distance ladder, showing how humans measured distances from the Earth to the Moon, Sun, planets and beyond.
harvard & aliens & crackpots: a disambiguation of Avi Loeb
Physicist Angela Collier gives an hour-long critique of Avi Loeb's alien claims and reputation, placing them within the broader topic of physics crackpots.
Unlocking UAP Mysteries: Economics, Aliens, and The Great Filter | Merged EP0109
A 146-minute Merged Podcast episode in which UAP researcher Ryan Graves talks with economist Robin Hanson about UFOs.
The Holographic Universe Explained
A PBS Space Time episode explaining the holographic principle: the idea that our 3+1 dimensional universe may be described by information on a lower-dimensional boundary.
Turning the Sun Into a Giant Telescope with Dr. Slava Turyshev
Fraser Cain interviews JPL physicist Slava Turyshev about using the Sun's gravity as a lens to image distant exoplanets.
that dark matter video aged like milk
Angela Collier, a physicist, revisits her earlier dark matter video, explaining dark matter as a set of observations rather than a theory and discussing MOND comments.