Journey away from the sun, past Earth and the inner planets, millions upon millions of miles. It’s here that giants lurk: Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, spheres so cold and distant that the sun is no more than a tiny beacon in a vast twilight. These are the frigid outer reaches of the Solar system … the edge of darkness.
Space holds as many questions as it does stars, and we will continue to send out explorers, our nature to inquire how the universe came to be. With each outward step, we come a little closer to comprehension, laying the foundations of understanding for generations to come.
Stephen Hawking is the most famous scientist on the planet. His popular science book ‘A Brief History of Time’ was a publishing sensation, staying at the top of the bestseller lists longer than any other book in recent history. But behind the public face lies an argument that has been raging for almost 30 years.
As the internet grows and e-commerce becomes more and more popular, hackers are increasingly being pursued by law enforcement agencies and corporations alike, as both outlaws and as security consultants. Hacking, for many, is becoming a career choice and, for others, a form of electronic civil disobedience.
In this documentary, we meet with the white hats and black hats of the hacking underworld; what motivates them to make the kind of mischief they make? Is it purely for fun, or should we be afraid, very afraid?
The universe began with a massive expansion, billions and billions of years ago, and it continues to expand with every passing second. The idea that the universe, and man’s very existence, began with a “Big Bang” is no longer a topic of debate among most scientists–it is essentially taken as fact.
How has man come to this conclusion, and how has our knowledge evolved so that we can recreate the very first seconds of our universe and all that has developed since? Interviews with the world’s leading physicists and historians are woven together with animated recreations and first-person accounts to explain concepts such as the formation of galaxies, the creation of elements and the formation of Earth itself.
Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to discover what the universe might actually look like. The journey takes him from the distant past to the boundaries of the known universe. Along the way he charts the remarkable stories of the men and women who discovered the truth about the cosmos and investigates how our understanding of space has been shaped by both mathematics and astronomy.
The second part of the series explores science at the very limits of human perception, where we now understand the deepest mysteries of the universe lie. Jim Al-Khalili sets out to answer one very simple question – what is nothing? His journey ends with perhaps the most profound insight about reality that humanity has ever made. Everything came from nothing. The quantum world of the super-small shaped the vast universe we inhabit today, and Jim can prove it.
What happens when we find life outside our own planet? Discovery Channel brings viewers on a virtual mission of the future. Right now, the search for planets with “life signatures” goes on. These efforts are global, and experts tell us on camera how this search for life is progressing around the world. No longer just the domain of science fiction, what could alien life really look like?
A closer look at all the various type of liquids which exist in throughout the universe, albeit in relatively small quantities compared to gases or solids.
These include places such as alien planets where molten iron rains from the sky, distant moons hundreds of degrees below zero where lakes of methane cover the surface, and at the center of gas giants, where pressures are great enough to give rise to electrified hydrogen metal.
Revealing the untold story of the 87-day battle to kill the Deepwater Horizon oil blowout a mile beneath the waves – a crisis that became America’s worst environmental disaster.
The internet is touted as one of the most important inventions in the history of modern man, and like the discovery of the atom, its ability to benefit mankind is matched only by its potential to unleash massive destruction.
As the extradition hearing to decide whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange must return to Sweden to face a rape allegation reaches its judgement, Panorama talks to his former right hand man who walked out last year.
