A stellar explosion, the supernova is the sensational death of a star. It can shine as bright as 100 billion Suns and radiate as much energy as the Sun would emit over 10 billion years. Jets of high-energy light and matter are propelled into space and can cause massive Gamma Ray Bursts and emit intense X-ray radiation for thousands of years. Astronomers believe that this process creates the very building blocks of planets, people and plants.
NOVA goes behind the scenes at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to offer a look at the construction and launch of the two Martian exploratory rovers, ‘Spirit’ and ‘Opportunity’.
From a distance, our galaxy would look like a flat spiral, some 100,000 light years across, with pockets of gas, clouds of dust, and about 400 billion stars rotating around the galaxys center. Thick dust and blinding starlight have long obscured our vision into the mysterious inner regions of the galactic center. And yet, the clues have been piling up, that something important, something strange is going on in there. Astronomers tracking stars in the center of the galaxy have found the best proof to date that black holes exist. Now, they are shooting for the first direct image of a black hole.
A presentation of the facts and theory surrounding the astronomical phenomenon of black holes, using the latest in computer-generated imagery. Theories regarding their origin are presented, along with speculation about what lies with and beyond them.
NASA’s New Horizon’s mission to Pluto was set to launch on January 17, 2006. Passport to Pluto goes behind the scenes to show the development and testing of the spacecraft, and the hard work of the scientists, engineers and support staff who worked for decades to make the mission possible.
New Horizons will be the fastest spacecraft ever launched from Earth, on board America’s most powerful rocket, and will be traveling the farthest distance to begin its primary mission of any NASA spacecraft. If all goes well it will reach Pluto and its giant moon, Charon — some 3 billion miles from Earth — as early as 2015, and then travel on out into the Kuiper Belt, a previously unexplored region of the solar system, populated by “ice dwarf” worlds completely unlike the terrestrial and gas giant planets known through previous missions.
The International Space Station is a vast orbiting laboratory whose construction has been hailed as the most ambitious feat of engineering in human history. The space station, a collaboration between 15 countries, is being assembled piece by piece. More than 50 missions, mostly by the shuttle, will be needed to transport and assemble the components.
Based on NASA flight director Gene Kranz’ autobiography “Failure is not an Option” this documentary traces the history of NASA Mission Control during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, with special emphasis on Apollo 1, 8, 11, 12 and 13.
While Kranz’ book often comes out as overly jingoistic and with an excess of pathos, this documentary strikes a good balance between depicting the historical background of the space race, the technical issues of spaceflight and the emotional impact on Mission Control personnel.
Brian Cox descends to the bottom of the Pacific in a submarine to witness the extraordinary life forms that survive in the cold, black waters. All life on Earth needs water so the search for aliens in the solar system has followed the search for water.
Soaring above the dramatic Scablands of the United States, Brian discovers how the same landscape has been found on Mars, and armed with a gas mask, he enters a cave in Mexico where bacteria breathe toxic gas and leak concentrated acid. Yet relatives of these creatures could be surviving in newly-discovered caves on Mars.
The worlds that surround our planet are all made of rock, but there the similarity ends. Some have a beating geological heart, others are frozen in time.
Brian Cox travels to the tallest mountain on Earth, the volcano Mauna Kea on Hawaii, to show how something as basic as a planet’s size can make the difference between life and death. Even on the summit of this volcano, he would stand in the shade of the tallest mountain in the solar system, an extinct volcano on Mars called Olympus Mons, which rises up 27 km.
The definitive story of going to the moon, told by those who went. Between 1969 and 1972 an elite group of men achieved an incredible dream. They were, and remain, the only human beings to set foot on a planet other than our own.
These personal testimonies are interwoven with digitally remastered footage from Nasa film archives, much of it previously unseen and all of it hauntingly evocative of a bygone era.
Professor Brian Cox reveals how something as flimsy as an envelope of gas – an atmosphere – can create some of the most wondrous sights in the solar system. He takes a ride in an English Electric Lightning and flies 18 km up to the top of earth’s atmosphere, where he sees the darkness of space above and the thin blue line of our atmosphere below.
In the Namib desert in south-west Africa, he tells the story of Mercury. This tiny planet was stripped naked of its early atmosphere and is fully exposed to the ferocity of space.
