Our rock is special - it's alive. Somehow our planet cooked up stardust and made life. But how did that begin and is it likely elsewhere? Astronaut host – Mae Jemison.
After 665 weightless days in space, NASA's most experienced astronaut, Peggy Whitson, smashes through the atmosphere on her last journey home to planet Earth. With unprecedented filming on board the ISS during Peggy's final mission and with the support of our other featured astronauts, we reveal how their time in space transforms their understanding of our planet's wonders, insights that will change our perspective, too. There is no place like home. Or is there? Just how strange is our rock, and is it really unique in the universe? Astronaut host – Peggy Whitson.
2018 • Astronomy
Just over 100 years ago, cutting into the brain was a terrifying prospect for both patient and surgeon. They could expect the result to be the surgeon bloodied and defeated, and the patient dead. From freak accidents involving crowbars through the skull to notorious lobotomies with icepicks, this programme reveals how, through mishap and misadventure, brain surgery has become the life-saving discipline it is today.
1 • Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery • 2009 • Astronomy
The Moon has drawn out our sense of wonder since before we were fully human. Where did it come from? What secrets are written in its rocks? For most of our history, its story was cloaked in myth and mystery. Only now are the vivid details coming into focus.
melodysheep • 2020 • Astronomy
The story of how we discovered Dark Matter and what we do and don't know about this mysterious substance. Did Vera Rubin discover the glue holding galaxies together? What composes dark matter? What are Dark Stars and what is super symmetry, the potential answer to the questions around Dark Matter?
4 • Cosmic Front • 2014 • Astronomy
For two years BBC cameras have followed, Dr Sheperd Doeleman of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the work of the Event Horizon Telescope project team, a collective of the top scientific minds from around the world. The project combines radio observatories and telescope facilities from around the world to make up a virtual telescope with a diameter spanning the entire planet. This mega-telescope’s ultimate mission is to capture the first image ever of a black hole. Although the concept of black holes has been long assumed to be fact, the Event Horizon Telescope’s success would definitively prove the existence of this scientific phenomena for the first time – and provide clear visual evidence. The programme brings viewers into the laboratories, behind the computer screens and beside the telescopes of what may prove to be one of the great astrophysical achievements in human history.
2019 • Astronomy
Professor Brian Cox reveals the history of Saturn. Saturn began life as a strange planet of rock and ice and in time transformed into a gas giant, ring-less and similar looking to its rival, Jupiter.
4/5 • The Planets 2019 • 2019 • Astronomy
The new discovery of seven alien Earth-like planets in a faraway solar system is a major milestone in our hunt for extraterrestrial life, and experts investigate the secrets of TRAPPIST-1's mysterious worlds to reveal if we're truly alone in the universe.
Space's Deepest Secrets • 2018 • Astronomy