End of an Era: The Final Shuttle Launch • 1989 • episode "6/10" • The Sagan Series

42:02

Astronaut Mike Massimino explores the dwarf planet Pluto, a tiny frozen world surrounded in secrets; using the latest science, he investigates the possibility of life in its mysterious ocean.

S1E6 • The Planets (US) • 2017 • Astronomy

42:31

Voyager has had a profound effect on our knowledge of the cosmos. Its mission was supposed to last five years but remains ongoing, fundamentally changing our understanding of the solar system. Featuring contributions from key scientists, we’ll explore what’s been achieved and what happens next.

S1E5 • Space's Deepest Secrets • 2016 • Astronomy

44:47

In 2017, two solar eclipses crossed the planet. Millions were awestruck as the earth, moon, and sun aligned, casting watchers into total darkness. America experienced the most extensive total eclipse, lasting ninety straight minutes, visible along a path pinpointed by NASA scientists.

2018 • Astronomy

54:11

In the 1950s and early '60s, a small band of high-altitude pioneers exposed themselves to the extreme forces of the space age long before NASA's acclaimed Mercury 7 would make headlines. Though largely forgotten today, balloonists were the first to venture into the frozen near-vacuum on the edge of our world, exploring the very limits of human physiology and human ingenuity in this lethal realm.

2016 • Astronomy

99:21

On September 14th, 2015, a ripple in the fabric of space, created by the violent collision of two distant black holes over a billion years ago, washed across the Earth. As it did, two laser-based detectors, 50 years in the making – one in Louisiana and the other in Washington State – momentarily twitched, confirming a century-old prediction by Albert Einstein and marking the opening of a new era in astronomy. Join some of the very scientists responsible for this most anticipated discovery of our age and see how gravitational waves will be used to explore the universe like never before.

World Science Festival • 2016 • Astronomy

58:59

For many years our place in the universe was the subject of theologians and philosophers, not scientists, but in 1960 one man changed all that. Dr Frank Drake was one of the leading lights in the new science of radio astronomy when he did something that was not only revolutionary, but could have cost him his career. Working at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Greenback in Virginia, he pointed one of their new 25-metre radio telescopes at a star called Tau Ceti twelve light years from earth, hoping for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Astronomy