Saturn: Mysteries Among the Rings • 2017 • episode "S1E4" • The Planets (US)

53:21

Almost everything we know today about the beautiful giant ringed planet comes from Cassini, the NASA mission that launched in 1997 and arrived at Saturn in 2004. Since then, the space probe has been beaming home miraculous images and scientific data, revealing countless wonders about the planet, its rings and 62 moons - including some that could harbor life. As the mission approaches its final days in 2017, it attempts one last set of daring maneuvers - diving between the innermost ring and the top of Saturn's atmosphere. Aiming to skim less than 2000 miles above the cloud tops, no spacecraft has ever gone so close to Saturn, and hopes are high for incredible observations that could solve major mysteries about the planet's core. But such a daring maneuver comes with many risks and is no slam dunk. In fact, slamming into rocks in the rings is a real possibility. Join NASA engineers for the tense and triumphant moments as they find out if their bold re-programming has worked, and discover the wonders that Cassini has revealed over the years.

NOVA PBS • 2017 • Astronomy

61:14

The episode, devoted to the planet Mars, begins with scientific and fictional speculation about the Red Planet during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, Edgar Rice Burroughs' science fiction books, and Percival Lowell's false vision of canals on Mars). It then moves to Robert Goddard's early experiments in rocket-building, inspired by reading science fiction, and the work by Mars probes, including the Viking, searching for life on Mars. The episode ends with the possibility of the terraforming and colonization of Mars and a Cosmos Update on the relevance of Mars' environment to Earth's and the possibility of a manned mission to Mars.

5/13 • Cosmos: A Personal Voyage • 1980 • Astronomy

53:29

Artemis arrives on the exoplanet Minerva B, but have they found evidence of life?

3/4 • Living Universe • 2018 • Astronomy

10:20

Right now, we know there is water on the Moon. But how much water? Is water largely at the poles? These are Strategic Knowledge Gaps that scientists are working to fill in, and a Resource Prospector robot will be launched to the moon in the 2020's to look for the presence of water

2/5 • Destination: Moon • 2016 • Astronomy

42:02

Scientists and modern explorers are determined to send humans to Mars; as NASA builds its first spacecraft to carry astronauts to Mars and tech visionaries devise extraterrestrial colonies, future on Mars might be a reality.

1/6 • Mars: The Secret Science Series 1 • 2014 • Astronomy

60:25

Carl Sagan opens the program with a description of the cosmos and a "Spaceship of the Imagination" (shaped like a dandelion seed). The ship journeys through the universe's hundred billion galaxies, the Local Group, the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way, the Orion Nebula, our Solar System, and finally the planet Earth. Eratosthenes' successful calculation of the circumference of Earth leads to a description of the ancient Library of Alexandria. Finally, the "Ages of Science" are described, before pulling back to the full span of the Cosmic Calendar. Note: This revised version of the series adds an introduction by Ann Druyan, in which she discusses some of the changes that occurred in the years after its broadcast.

1/13 • Cosmos: A Personal Voyage • 1980 • Astronomy