This documentary journeys with the scientists into the heart of a giant. Juno is the Nasa mission designed to peer through Jupiter's swirling clouds and reveal the wonders within. By projecting a 70-foot-wide, life-size Juno on a Houston rooftop, Scott Bolton, head of Juno, shows us how its fragile electronics are encased in 200kg of titanium. As Scott puts it, 'we had to build an armoured tank to go there.' Professor Andrew Ingersoll, Juno's space weatherman, reveals they have seen lightning inside Jupiter, perhaps a thousand times more powerful than Earth's lightning. This might be evidence for huge quantities of water inside Jupiter. Under the extreme conditions of Jupiter thousands of miles under the surface, hydrogen becomes a liquid metal. Juno is finding out how much liquid metallic hydrogen is inside Jupiter, and scientists hope to better understand how this flowing metal produces the most powerful aurora in the Solar System. But what is at Jupiter's heart? In Nice, Prof Tristan Guillot explains how Juno uses gravity to map the planet's centre. This can take scientists back to the earliest days of the solar system, because Jupiter is the oldest planet and it should contain clues to its own creation. By chalking out an outline of the Jupiter, Tristan reveals there is a huge rocky core - perhaps ten times the mass of Earth.
An informative and ambitious journey exploring how the evolution of scientific understanding is intimately interwoven with society's historical path. The Story Of Science tells the forces that came together to create scientific knowledge; the practical business of making instruments and machines; the great forces of history – revolutions, voyages of discovery and artistic movements – and the dogged determination of scientists and experimenters. This is the story of how scientific ideas shaped the modern world and how science made history. Michael Mosley begins the first episode with the story of one of the great upheavals in human history - how we came to understand that our planet was not at the centre of everything in the cosmos, but just one of billions of bodies in a vast and expanding universe. He reveals the critical role of medieval astrologers in changing our view of the heavens, and the surprising connections to the upheavals of the Renaissance, the growth of coffee shops and Californian oil and railway barons. Michael shows how important the practical skills of craftsmen have been to this story and finds out how Galileo made his telescope to peer at the heavens and by doing so helped change our view of the universe forever.
Comet ISON can well be the brightest and most spectacular comet for a generation. It appeared above the eastern horizon from December 2013 as a glorious streak across the sky. ISON has been travelling towards the sun for ten thousand years and will make only one orbit through its corona before disappearing off into the outer solar system. But as well as providing a great spectacle, ISON's tail of vaporised gas and water, hundreds of millions of kilometres long, will give insights into some of the greatest mysteries of science; it will help explain the origins of the solar system, whether earth's water was delivered on comets and even whether we are alone in the universe.
Take an exhilarating, unprecedented exploration of the seven most amazing wonders of our solar system. Our virtual tour begins with a trip to Enceladus, one of Saturn's outer moons, where icy geysers spout from its surface. Then venture to Saturn's famous rings, which contain mountain ranges that rival the Alps. Next dive into the eye of the biggest storm in the solar system--Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Soar through the Asteroid Belt, containing millions of leftover rocks from the formation of the solar system. Trek up Mount Olympus, the largest volcano, located on Mars. Have a close encounter with the searing surface of the Sun, and finish the journey by exploring our home planet Earth.
Take an express journey to the edge of the universe as the filmmakers use computer-generated animation to build on images captures by the Hubble Telescope. The animation and story telling absolutely wonderful. Beginning on planet Earth, viewers are hurtled into the deepest reaches of space. There are no stops on this flight, and along the way the mysteries of the universe come alive as we examine the history and science of distant celestial.
In this 2-part special, Professor Brian Cox tackles the biggest story of them all, the story of our Universe. In the first episode, Creation, Brian probes our moment of creation. How did our Universe come into existence? Was there a time before the Big Bang? Do our laws of physics inexorably lead to the existence of us?
Under the extreme conditions of Jupiter thousands of miles under the surface, hydrogen becomes a liquid metal. Juno is finding out how much liquid metallic hydrogen is inside Jupiter, and scientists hope to better understand how this flowing metal produces the most powerful aurora in the Solar System. But what is at Jupiter's heart? In Nice, Prof Tristan Guillot explains how Juno uses gravity to map the planet's centre. This can take scientists back to the earliest days of the solar system, because Jupiter is the oldest planet and it should contain clues to its own creation. By chalking out an outline of the Jupiter, Tristan reveals there is a huge rocky core - perhaps ten times the mass of Earth.