Aurora • 2016 • episode "Part 4" • Dangerous Earth

Category: Nature | Download:

Helen looks at the latest scientific insight into the aurora - dancing lights in the night sky that have fascinated cultures throughout our history. From the networks of cameras now capturing its vast scale, to novel experiments that probe the threat it poses to modern technology, Helen reveals the dramatic transformation in our understanding of the aurora, and the many mysteries that remain to be solved.

Make a donation

Buy a brother a hot coffee? Or a cold beer?

Hope you're finding these documentaries fascinating and eye-opening. It's just me, working hard behind the scenes to bring you this enriching content.

Running and maintaining a website like this takes time and resources. That's why I'm reaching out to you. If you appreciate what I do and would like to support my efforts, would you consider "buying me a coffee"?

Donation addresses

BTC: bc1q8ldskxh4x9qnddhcrgcun8rtvddeldm2a07r2v

ETH: 0x5CCAAA1afc5c5D814129d99277dDb5A979672116

With your donation through , you can show your appreciation and help me keep this project going. Every contribution, no matter how small, makes a significant impact. It goes directly towards covering server costs.

Dangerous Earth • 2016 • 5 episodes •

Avalanche

Dr Helen Czerski looks at the anatomy of an avalanche. From shocking eyewitness footage from within an avalanche, to detailed CT scans showing the microscopic changes that cause them, we can now capture exactly what happens as snow transforms into a deadly and unpredictable danger.

2016 • Nature

Volcano

Helen looks at volcanoes. With shocking eyewitness footage of eruptions, and new thermal imagery and ultra-high speed photography, we can now capture on camera the complex processes crucial to understanding how and why these forces of nature erupt.

2016 • Nature

Lightning

Dr Helen Czerski examines the hottest natural phenomena on the planet - lightning. Bolts of lightning five times hotter than the surface of the sun strike our planet over 3 million times every day - and yet we still know little about this deadly force of nature. Now, specialist photography is revealing how lightning travels through the air, high-speed cameras are unlocking the secrets of upward lightning that's triggered by our urban landscapes, and scientific expeditions are capturing rare images of intense electrical discharges over 80 kilometres wide.

2016 • Nature

Aurora

Helen looks at the latest scientific insight into the aurora - dancing lights in the night sky that have fascinated cultures throughout our history. From the networks of cameras now capturing its vast scale, to novel experiments that probe the threat it poses to modern technology, Helen reveals the dramatic transformation in our understanding of the aurora, and the many mysteries that remain to be solved.

2016 • Nature

Tornado

Dr Helen Czerski peers into the heart of the storm to find out how advances in technology are giving new insight into tornadoes - the fastest winds on the planet. From the breathtaking footage that capture the extreme weather events that produce them, to the latest experiments investigating their incredible destructive power, Helen discovers how understanding the subtle changes deep within the storm are improving predictions of when and where these devastating beasts will strike.

2016 • Nature

You might also like

Body and Soul

The first programme of Darwin's Dangerous Idea explores the impact of Darwin’s ideas on religion and morality. Andrew Marr discovers that an important part of the Beagle’s mission was to return three natives to their homeland, Tierra del Fuego, at the southernmost tip of Argentina. Years before he reached the Galapagos, they raised questions in his mind about the fragility of civilisation and what it really means to be human. Marr explores how Darwin developed his ideas when he returned to Britain and finally unleashed his theory of evolution by natural selection on the world. Darwin’s ideas are taken up by many of the major thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. We discover that his ideas helped motivate the Kaiser’s army in the First World War and would also help convince the United States government to drop its isolationist policy and enter the conflict. In the 20th century, we discover a growing backlash against Darwin’s ideas among fundamentalists from the world’s major religions. At the same time science has been showing that Darwin’s theory of natural selection holds sway over our behaviour - including our morality - as much as it does over the evolution of our bodies. There is significant scientific evidence that suggests that Darwin has returned humanity to nature, in all its wonder, its glory and its danger.

S1E1 • Darwin's Dangerous Idea • 2009 • Nature

Part III

As marine life around the world embarks on epic journeys across the planet’s oceans, we discover how ocean traffic, over-fishing and noise pollution could have an impact.

S1E3 • Blue Planet Live • 2019 • Nature

Part I

Kate dives to some of the most intact shipwrecks left by World War II, while it is one drama after another for the deep dive team in their quest to find new species.

S1E1 • Pacific Abyss • 2008 • Nature

The Simien Mountains

The Simien Mountains

Known as "the roof of Africa," the Simien Mountains offer a glimpse at some of the rarest creatures on the continent. Among plunging cliffs that give way to lush greenery and foggy skies, learn how native wildlife like the magnificent walia ibex and cunning Simien wolf have adapted to this remote alpine terrain.

S1E3 • Extreme Africa • 2017 • Nature

Wetland Animals

Wetland Animals

Wetland Animals dives into the swamps, rivers and flood plains of Florida's Everglades, Botswana's Okavango Delta, Kakadu National Park in Australia, the Amazon and more. Meet deadly crocodiles, alligators and piranhas, wading elephants, hippopotamus and flamingo, and unlikely swimmers such as the manatee and platypus.

S1E2 • World's Greatest Animal Encounters • 2020 • Nature

Yukon

Simon Reeve treks and canoes through Canada’s rugged and frozen Yukon Territory to meet the people who make the wilderness home and to search for grizzly bears, the apex predator.

S2E3 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature