Climate change has registered significant change to the ice caps and these changes have a profound environmental effect on all of us. According to the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States the earth has experienced a rise in global temperature of about half a degree Celsius over the past 100 years. This apparently modest increase over the past century is responsible for a rise in the world’s sea level of six to eight inches.
Antarctica holds approximately 90 per cent of the world’s ice and has been measured to be at least 7,000 feet thick. If all of the Antarctic ice melted, sea levels around the world would rise about 200 feet. But the average temperature in Antarctica is -37°C, so the ice there is in no danger of melting. In fact in most parts of the continent it never gets above freezing.
The Arctic contains much less ice and most of it floats on the Arctic Ocean, the world’s smallest ocean (about eight per cent the size of the Pacific Ocean). Unlike Antarctica, people live here with the farthest northern city in the world being Norlisk, Russia, home to an estimated 230,000 hearty souls.
In 1995 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report which contained various projections of the sea level change by the year 2100. They estimate that the sea will rise 20 inches with the lowest estimates at six inches and the highest at 37 inches. The rise will come from thermal expansion of the ocean and from melting glaciers and ice sheets.
Documentary-maker David Malone delves into the secrets of ocean waves. In an elegant and original film he finds that waves are not made of water, that some waves travel sideways and that the sound of the ocean comes not from water but from bubbles. Waves are not only beautiful but also profoundly important, and there is a surprising connection between the life cycle of waves and the life of human beings.
It’s a voyage of exploration like no other – to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon and thought to resemble our own early Earth. For a small team of British scientists this would be the culmination of a lifetime’s endeavour – the flight alone, some 2 billion miles, would take a full seven years. This is the story of the space probe they built, the sacrifices they made and their hopes for the landing. Would their ambitions survive the descent into the unknown on Titan’s surface?
In the year 2210, scientists uncover the ruins of a great civilisation – so powerful one could argue it dwarfed anything that came before it. Sifting through the wreckage of cities overtaken by the desert and swallowed up by the sea, they piece together a remarkable story of collapse – the story of what on Earth happened to us.
Five astronauts pilot the nuclear thermal rocket powered Pegasus spacecraft on a tour of the solar system. Their mission is a collaboration of the NASA, CSA, ESA and РКА space agencies and takes the crew to Venus, Mars, a close flyby of the Sun, Jupiter’s moons of Io and Europa, Saturn’s moon of Titan, Pluto, and the fictional Comet Yano-Moore.
Most of the planetary destinations the crew reaches are followed by a manned landing there. Prior to the mission large tanks of Hydrogen were deposited in stable orbits around the planets to allow the crew to refuel to have sufficient delta-v for the multi-year mission.
The crew encounter many hardships and disappointments along the way. A Venus EVA that almost ends in disaster when the lander Orpheus encounters launch delays, a Titan probe that fails after deployment and the loss of samples from Jupiter’s moon Io all test the crew’s resolve.
The most devastating blow comes when the ship’s medical officer dies of solar radiation-induced cancer in Saturn orbit, forcing the crew to decide whether to continue the mission to Pluto, or abort and return to Earth.
Sir Martin Rees explores the possibility that life exists on planets beyond our own. He unveils an unsettling scientific debate that has startling consequences for us Earthlings. Do you believe in aliens? If not, a quick glance through these pages might change your mind.
Everything you thought you knew about the universe is wrong. It’s made of atoms, right? Wrong. Atoms only account for a measly 15% of everything that exists. The mass of the universe consists of something so mysterious and elusive that it has been dubbed ‘dark matter’.
There is a fundamental chasm in our understanding of ourselves, the universe, and everything. To solve this, Sir Martin Rees takes us on a mind-boggling journey through multiple universes to post-biological life. On the way, we learn of the disturbing possibility that we could be the product of somebody else’s experiment.
Professor Marcus du Sautoy goes in search of answers to one of science’s greatest mysteries: how do we know who we are? While the thoughts that make us feel as though we know ourselves are easy to experience, they are notoriously difficult to explain. So, in order to find out where they come from, he subjects himself to a series of probing experiments.
Exploring the strange and wonderful world of illusions, and revealing the tricks they play on our senses and why they fool us. How easy is it to trick your sense of taste by changing the colours of food and drink? how can what you see can change what you hear? and just how unreliable is our sense of colour?
Space probes, what they have done and found for us in space, and what they might do in the future, such as searching for Earth-like planets and for extraterrestrial life.
