The most common vision of black holes is that they are monstrous and mysterious bodies swallowing everything around them. However, the latest discoveries are drawing a link between black holes and the existence of life.
NASA’s next-generation space telescope TESS (Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has begun its search for Earth-like planets belonging to other star systems. How many of these ‘exoplanets’ can host life, and what kind of lifeforms can evolve in these environments?
2020 • Astronomy
The most common vision of black holes is that they are monstrous and mysterious bodies swallowing everything around them. However, the latest discoveries are drawing a link between black holes and the existence of life.
2020 • Astronomy
Volcanoes have long helped shape the Earth. But what is less well known is that there are volcanoes on other planets and moons that are even more extraordinary than those on our own home planet. Horizon follows an international team of volcanologists in Iceland as they draw fascinating parallels between the volcanoes on Earth and those elsewhere in the solar system. Through the team's research, we discover that the largest volcano in the solar system - Olympus Mons on Mars - has been formed in a similar way to those of Iceland, how a small moon of Jupiter - Io - has the most violent eruptions anywhere, and that a moon of Saturn called Enceladus erupts icy geysers from a hidden ocean. Computer graphics combined with original NASA material reveal the spectacular sights of these amazing volcanoes. Along the way, we learn that volcanoes are not just a destructive force, but have been essential to the formation of atmospheres and even life. And through these volcanoes of the solar system, scientists have discovered far more about our own planet, Earth - what it was like when Earth first formed, and even what will happen to our planet in the future.
Discovering how life on Earth came to be; the possibility that life on Earth come from another planet.
S4E5 • How the Universe Works • 2015 • Astronomy
Our solar system is home to hundreds of strange, tiny worlds called dwarf planets, and new discoveries reveal the secrets of these mysterious places.
S6E8 • How the Universe Works • 2018 • Astronomy
From the mission that saw Pluto for the first time to the Mars rovers, a new breed of explorers are risking their careers, and even their lives, to lead humanity to worlds we have never seen and tackle the mysteries of life itself.
S1E1 • Space's Deepest Secrets • 2016 • Astronomy
On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group of friends build the first scale model of the solar system with complete planetary orbits: a true illustration of our place in the universe.
2015 • Astronomy
NOVA examines how a simple instrument, the telescope, has fundamentally changed our understanding of our place in the universe. What began as a curiosity—two spectacle lenses held a foot apart—ultimately revolutionized human thought across science, philosophy, and religion. "Hunting the Edge of Space" takes viewers on a global adventure of discovery, dramatizing the innovations in technology and the achievements in science that have marked the rich history of the telescope.
1/2 • Hunting the Edge of Space • 2012 • Astronomy