Looking Into the Center of the Galaxy

Astrophysicist Rachel Smith is an observer of forming stars. From 20,000 light years away, Smith trawls the frontiers of our galaxy searching through the chemistry of where in the universe Earth-like planets could exist.

“You have a puzzle with a million or a billion pieces, and we’ve got one piece,” explains Smith. “I’m interested in the chemistry of what’s going on from where we are to where the center of our galaxy is.”

In episode five of The Most Unknown, Smith travels to Hawaii’s W.M. Keck Observatory with astrobiologist Luke McKay to explore the Milky Way using Keck’s powerful twin telescopes perched atop the Big Island’s dormant Mauna Kea volcano.

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[SueMead]

Love how excited they get. I get like that every time I look up at the night sky and see a satellite whizzing by or the ISS as it passes over head. We need parents and teachers to get kids excited about the universe and their place in it. Thanks Rachel Smith. You're an inspiration.

[rolfw]

A nice snapshot into a scientist's life. Keep up the good work Dr Rachel Smith!

[metanumia]

Rachel Smith is very effective as a science communicator, she provided excellent analogies to simplify the galactic-complexity of her research into layman's terms. I loved this episode of TMU, and the one after this about the deep sea marine biologists. I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was a child and idolized Jacques Cousteau.

[ryanfry]

Loved the documentary, please keep posting extended cuts of each part!

[anonymousbub]

I love caves and all of this stuff you show on your channel it’s amazing!!!

[MrGelly]

I love every astrophysicist, astronomer, astronaut, and every person who appreciates the universe. Thank you Dr. Sagan for showing me the cosmos.

[ericwood]

I like the way Rachel explains things. If you stop and think about it, light tells us most of what we know about the phenomena we study, whether we're viewing it through a microscope or through a telescope.

[afsdsasasf]

thanks motherboard for linking up these diff scientists together. I wish that theres a platform where people from different industries and countries can come together and talk to each other or try to solve each others' problems

[shanghai_city]

This channel produces some of the best short documentaries on youtube. Thanks for sharing with us.

[phoule]

great vid! I love seeing passionate people's enthusiasm, especially scientists'.

[bigniper]

My grandson is studying to be a Astrophysicist at St Andrews University; Scotland. I could not be more Proud of Him if i Tried.

[MoonGables]

this documentary was very entertaining!

[pandaDotDragon]

Aaaaah the charm of a GUI in X/Motif ^^'

[Ashx]

i just love all this stuff, it's so just, out there like literally in the sense that it has nothing to do with anything here in our daily lives, what we need to focus on just to purely survive, but it's out there in the philosophical sense of just being pure interest in the unknown, wanting to know what is beyond our observation and how we can find out what's out there. Very existential and some very cool tech to serve that pursuit.

[qifhaz]

Motherboard, congrats for all the information about Earth & planets.

[crappymeal]

People like this work so hard to bring me fascinating discovery's yet i bring nothing to the plate, i almost feel guilty, hopefully one day i will contribute something

[patelav]

This is from netflix series, idk how you guys got to post it on here

EDIT: its from THE MOST UNKNOWN on netflix. Its a documentary, its great should watch it.

[Sleepingelements]

These are the most chilled out doctors. I keep waiting for them to say 'dude'.
I love it. I'd probably have so much fun spending time with them.

[AdamShaiken]

Frankly, ordinary existence is wholly just as intriguing and extraordinary !!!

[Jaem-gybz]

I had a dream where i was travelling from galaxy to galaxy. It was the best dream i ever had.