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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?
1/2 • Space Phenomena • 2020 • Astronomy
Richard Hammond takes on the ultimate engineering project. How on earth do you make a planet, or a solar system, a galaxy or even... a universe? To find out, he opens up his cosmic toolbox and builds each one piece by piece, from the top of an impossibly high tower. What does he need to construct the cosmos, and what happens if he gets it wrong? With eye-popping computer graphics, Richard discovers that it takes an entire universe to make our planet just right for us.
2/2 • Richard Hammond Builds... • 2013 • Astronomy
"This film documents an event that has never taken place – man's first encounter with intelligent life from space". We've been fantasizing about an extraterrestrial visit for decades, but what would happen if it actually took place? How would we cope? Should we be afraid? These and many other questions are addressed in this philosophical film about a hypothetical initial contact with aliens. Scientists and space affairs specialists at the UN and NASA and in the British government cooperate in this cinematic simulation of the undoubtedly exciting meeting between extraterrestrial life and humanity. The interviewees speak directly to the unknown entities as if they've already arrived. From their own fields – politics, theology, sociology, biology or space science – they ask probing questions. What are you doing here? Do you have a sense of right and wrong? Do you carry bacteria that could make us sick? Are we hazardous to your immune system? Information specialists in the British government show how a first summit in this situation could go. How do you inform the public? Will countries work together? Is there a danger involved? Above all, the alien visit raises questions about the relation between our own history of exploration, colonization and warfare, and the expectations with which we approach the unknown. This is a journey beyond terrestrial perspective, revealing the fears, hopes, and rituals of a species forced not only to confront alien life forms, but also its own self image.
2015 • Astronomy
In this talk-show with the popular astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill explores a variety of topics, including the nature of an expanding, accelerating universe (and how it might end), the difference between “dark energy” and “dark matter,” the concept of God in cosmology and why science matters.
Today Phil helps keep you from ticking off an astronomer in your life by making sure you know the difference between a meteor, meteorite, and meteoroid. When the Earth plows through the stream emitted by a comet we get a meteor shower. Meteors burn up about 100 km above the Earth, but some survive to hit the ground. Most of these meteorites are rocky, some are metallic, and a few are a mix of the two. Very big meteorites can be a very big problem, but there are plans in the works to prevent us from going the way of the dinosaurs.
23 • Crash Course Astronomy • 2015 • Astronomy
To discover what created the Milky Way, scientists have to look back 13.7 billion years to the moments just after the Big Bang.
S3E7 • How the Universe Works • 2014 • Astronomy