Touchdown on Titan
After an interplanetary journey of 7 ¬ years, the ESA's probe Huygens landed on the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Professor Zarnecki describes the journey of the probe as well as its final dramatic plunge to the surface and presents the r....
More details | Watch nowAntikythera Mechanism Part 1
New interpretations of the Antikythera Mechanism reveal that it could be used to predict eclipses, and that it had a dial recording the dates of the ancient Olympiads. The 2,000-year-old box of intricate gearwork provides a glimpse of the engineering....
More details | Watch nowAntikythera Mechanism Part 2
New interpretations of the Antikythera Mechanism reveal that it could be used to predict eclipses, and that it had a dial recording the dates of the ancient Olympiads. The 2,000-year-old box of intricate gearwork provides a glimpse of the engineering....
More details | Watch nowVoyages through the heliosphere
A series of papers in Nature analyse recent observations from the outer limits of the Solar System, and help build up a picture of how the Sun interacts with the rest of the Galaxy.
More details | Watch nowMega-impact on Mars
Scientists have identified what could be the largest impact structure in the Solar System, created on Mars at about the same time as the Moon-forming impact on Earth.
More details | Watch nowA flash from the early Universe
Light from a star that exploded 13 billion years ago has reached Earth, setting a new record for the most distant astronomical object yet observed. The characteristics of the explosion show that massive stars were already forming only 630 million yea....
More details | Watch nowThe Status of Pluto as a Planet – or not
Nowrin Alam presents on the past, debate, and present status of Pluto as a planet and now as a dwarf planet.
More details | Watch nowTick, Tick Pulsating Star: How we wonder what you are?
The discovery of pulsars, neutron stars which form when massive stars explode (supernovae), took astronomers by surprise. Their discovery is described and the way in which these bizarre objects have led to an understanding of matter under extreme con....
More details | Watch nowThe Mathematician Who Can’t Add Up
Emma was a post-graduate student at the University of Nottingham, completing a PhD in the field of theoretical cosmology. As an undergraduate at the University of Sussex she made history when she became the first woman to win the top prize at the Sci....
More details | Watch nowOverview of the Universe
An overview of the Universe and its component parts e.g. galaxies, stars, planets etc.
More details | Watch nowOrigin of the Elements
Origin of the elements and the formation of molecules in the interstellar medium: Big Bang synthesis, stellar synthesis of He and C and other elements, interstellar scattering, interstellar species such as carbon monoxide and more complex molecules.
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The development of molecular radio astronomy and infra red techniques and the information they yield on the composition of the interstellar medium: interstellar clouds, stellar envelopes etc.
More details | Watch nowOptical (Electronic) Spectra From Space
Optical (electronic) spectra from space: comets. The detection of the pulsar in the Crab Nebula. The Three Degree Background. The detection by spectroscopy of the birth of stars.
More details | Watch nowElectronic Spectroscopy and Franck Condon Factors
Electronic spectroscopy and Franck Condon factors. The discovery of the spectrum of H3+ in the laboratory and in the atmosphere of Jupiter. Interstellar chemistry: Ion molecule reactions in space, grain surface catalysed processes and reactions in ci....
More details | Watch nowRadio Astronomy – Resolution Issues
Radio astronomy - resolution issues. The detection of long carbon chain molecules by radio astronomy. The conjectures on the origin of the chains in space and their possible relationship with the Diffuse Interstellar Bands that initiated the experime....
More details | Watch nowWhere do you come from?
A simple introduction to our ideas about where the elements which make up the Earth originated.
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