Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the third episode a new BBC documentary series about the history of science entitled “The Story of Science” hosted by Michael Mosley.
In the third installment of the series, Mosley explores the most controversial and contentious questions that science has ever wrestled with - that of our human origins.
This is the story of how scientists came to explain the beauty and diversity of life on earth, and reveal how its evolution is connected to the long and violent history of our planet. Featuring ocean adventurers, eccentric French aristocrats, mountain climbers, a secret Victorian publisher with 12 fingers, a ridiculed German meteorologist, and only a brief hint of Charles Darwin.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the first installment of the popular documentary series - The Cosmos: A Beginners Guide and explore the exciting possibility of life elsewhere in our vast and ancient Cosmos.
This series is the story of everything – from the first microseconds of our universe’s beginning to the exciting future of first contact and homes beyond our Earth. Join Adam Hart-Davis, Janet Sumner and Maggie Aderin for a journey around the planet to discover the latest thinking about the Cosmos.
In the first episode of this series Adam Hart-Davis presents this episode from the Allan Telescope Array (ATA), an impressive group of telescopes in the Mountains of Northern California. It’s at the cutting edge in the search for intelligent life. Adam teams up with Dr Seth Shostack (SETI Institute), an alien hunter with twenty years’ experience under his belt. We find out why the ATA is the most powerful telescope ever built – and learn about future plans for the hugely powerful Square Kilometre Array.
The Cosmos: A Beginners Guide – Life in the Cosmos
Today on Discovery Enterprise we continue our whirl wind tour of the wonders of the solar system with episode three of Wonders of the Solar System, presented by Professor Brian Cox.
Professor Cox visits some of the most stunning locations on earth to describe how the laws of nature have carved natural wonders across the solar system.
In the third installment of Wonders of the Solar System, Professor 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.
Against the stunning backdrop of the glaciers of Alaska, Professor Cox reveals his fourth wonder: Saturn’s moon Titan, shrouded by a murky, thick atmosphere. He reveals that below the clouds lies a magical world. Titan is the only place beyond earth where we’ve found liquid pooling on the surface in vast lakes, as big as the Caspian Sea, but the lakes of Titan are filled with a mysterious liquid, and are quite unlike anything on earth.
Birds do it, bees do it and people do it to. But, how on Earth did dinosaurs do it? Find out today on Discovery Enterprise as we explore - Everything you ever wanted to know about dino sex, but where afraid to ask.
You can also see this remarkable video in full screen mode here or right click on the screen and choose full screen view and the advert will disappear.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the second episode a new BBC documentary series about the history of science entitled “The Story of Science” hosted by Michael Mosley.
In the second instalment of the series, Mosley demonstrates how our society is built on our search to find the answer to what makes up everything in the material world. This is a story that moves from the secret labs of the alchemists and their search for gold to the creation of the world’s first synthetic dye – mauve – and onto the invention of the transistor.
This quest may seem abstract and highly theoretical. Yet it has delivered the greatest impact on humanity. By trying to answer this question, scientists have created theories from elements to atoms, and the strange concepts of quantum physics that underpin our modern, technological world.
Today on Discovery Enterprise, as part of our Oceans 911 funding drive, we present another in a series of documentaries concerning the major dangers of environmental degradation and climate change facing our world. Today’s video feature is the documentary - the 11th Hour. Join in the fight against the environmental degradation of our oceans by contributing to the Oceans 911 fund.
With contributions from over 50 politicians, scientists, and environmental activists, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Stephen Hawking, Wangari Maathai, the film documents the grave problems facing the planet’s life systems.
Global warming, deforestation, mass species extinction, and depletion of the oceans’ habitats are all addressed. The film’s premise is that the future of humanity is in jeopardy. The film proposes potential solutions to these problems by calling for restorative action by the reshaping and rethinking of global human activity through technology, social responsibility and conservation.
Not all scientists agree on the fact that global warming is an immediate threat. Although, every scientist in this movie apparently does. Every expert interviewed stressed the fact that human involvement in the fight against global warming is mandatory. This is due to the fact that the increased anthropogenic cycle is pinned down as the main cause of climate change in the movie.
The role of humans in the destruction of the environment is explained from the viewpoint of several different professional fields: environmental scientists, oceanographers, economic historians, medical specialists, etc. The best example of this came from philosopher Wade Davis who theorized that to people, “You are either a person or property,” referring to mankind’s view on land and natural resource.
Viewed from the heights of celestial space, an intrepid explorer could clearly see that our world is an ocean planet. The realm of Poseidon comprises an area more than three times greater in size than humanity's current domain. Three quarters of our planet is covered by water and yet, for all of recorded history, humankind has insisted on naming our planet the Earth. Dry land, which is the kingdom of man, only occupies a quarter of our globe, yet it has served as the stage on which many of our human concerns have, and continue to be, played out.
Only after humans took their first tentative steps away from the security of the seashore did the surface of the world's ocean begin to greatly influence the affairs of men. Humans crossed the ocean in search of new lands and thus began an age of exploration that has transformed many a civilization. This urge to explore has been shared by all peoples in all epochs and across many different cultures.
The ocean has also served as a barrier to hostile powers, a battlefield for plunder and conquest, and as a highway for commerce. The control of its major sea routes has built global empires. Its treasures have enriched the sovereigns and principalities of many a kingdom. Yet, despite all this, much of the ocean's vast food and mineral wealth remain untouched. Humanity has yet to share in the immeasurable bounty that lies in wait at the end of Poseidon’s cornucopia.
The depths of the ocean is a world unto itself, beyond, for most of human history, the reach of mere men and their earthly empires. It is a world that, for the most part, is external to the rule of terrestrial kings and princes – a world aptly named Aquatica.
Yet, Aquatica is not totally beyond the reach of human blunder and despoilment.
The oceans have become the cesspool of the human species and its vast bounty in serious peril of being ruined before its full potential can be realised.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present two documentaries that highlight the peril facing the last great frontier on Earth and why the League of New Worlds is committed to the continual monitoring of the health of our planetary ocean - Aquatica. Please visit the Atlantica Expeditions web site and learn more about this exciting vision of exploration and discovery. And please lend your support to our Oceans 911 funding drive.
“For all at last returns to the sea - to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the everflowing stream of time,
the beginning and the end.”
-Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us, 1951
The Atlantica Expedition’s Environmental Monitoring Program is dedicated to the late Rachel Louise Carson to honor her belief that all of nature is interconnected, including humankind who has assumed the duty as the caretaker of the earth. She also taught that each one of us are stewards of the environment. Within us lies the capacity to make a difference in our own small or greater ways. Were it not for Rachael, we would never have understood our true role and we would never have opend our eyes to see the beauty of the sea.
We must commit our global civilization to the long term goal of maintaining the health and vitality of this planet in all its realms – land, air and sea. All of which are integral to the long term habitability of our world. Vital in meeting that end is our commitment to the continual monitoring of the health of our planetary ocean - Aquatica. Visit the Atlantica Expeditions web site and learn more about this exciting vision of exploration and discovery.
For the price of a modest meal you can help ensure the long term future of humanity by helping to preserve the world’s oceans.
Oceans 911 - The Atlantica Project - A Planetary Oceans Health Monitoring Station
Strange Days on Planet Earth - Oceans: Dirty Secrets
Something is amiss in our global world water supply: Striped bass are succumbing to flesh-eating bacteria in Chesapeake Bay; seabird chicks are starving in Hawaii’s; coral reefs are weakening under a growing assault of invisible contaminants and an increasing variety of aquatic animals are showing signs of developmental disorders. Experts and citizens are racing to find clues to the causes—and the solutions. Find out how we all can make a difference.
Strange Days On Planet Earth - Oceans: Dangerous Catch
Our massive demands on the ocean’s bounty impacts life far beyond the shoreline: bushmeat hunting is on the rise in Ghana while in Namibia; fishing grounds struggle to recover as putrid fumes explode from the ocean depths and poison the waters; and radical new fish farms are sprouting up from Puerto Rico to Canada. Across the globe, all life is feeling the effects of overfishing. Can we protect fish in time to safeguard the ocean, life on land and ultimately ourselves? Find out how we all can make a difference.
In a feat that is the culmination of two and a half years of tests and adjustments, researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute inserted artificial genetic material — chemically printed, synthesized and assembled — into cells that were then able to grow naturally.
“We all had a very good feeling that it was going to work this time,” said Venter Institute synthetic biologist Daniel Gibson, co-author of the study published May 20 in Science. “But we were cautiously optimistic because we had so many letdowns following the previous experiments.”
On a Friday in March, scientists inserted over 1 million base pairs of synthetic DNA into Mycoplasma capricolum cells before leaving for the weekend. When they returned on Monday, their cells had bloomed into colonies.
“When we look at life forms, we see fixed entities,” said J. Craig Venter, president of the Institute, in a recent podcast. “But this shows in fact how dynamic they are. They change from second to second. And that life is basically the result of an information process. Our genetic code is our software.”
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the greatest story ever told of how the Universe came into being out of nothing. It is also the story of how it grew from a miniscule point of potentiality, smaller than the nucleus of an atom, into the vast, grand and awesome reality we call the cosmos.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we continue our whirl wind tour of the wonders of the solar system with episode two of Wonders of the Solar System, presented by Professor Brian Cox.
Professor Cox visits some of the most stunning locations on earth to describe how the laws of nature have carved natural wonders across the solar system.
In this second installment he reveals how beauty and order in earth’s cosmic backyard was formed from nothing more than a chaotic cloud of gas. Chasing tornados in Oklahoma, he explains how the same physics that creates these spinning storms shaped the young solar system. Out of this celestial maelstrom emerged the jewel in the crown of the solar system, Professor Cox’s second wonder – the magnificent rings of Saturn.
On an ice-choked lagoon in Iceland, he sees the nearest thing on Earth to Saturn’s rings. Using the latest scientific imagery and breathtaking graphics, he explains how the intricate patterns round Saturn are shaped by the cluster of more than 60 moons surrounding the planet.
One of those moons makes a spectacular contribution to the rings and is the third wonder of the solar system. Professor Cox also describes the astonishing discovery of giant fountains of ice erupting from the surface of Enceladus, which soar thousands of kilometres into space.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the first episode a new BBC documentary series about the history of science entitled “The Story of Science” hosted by Michael Mosley.
In the first episode “What is out there?” Michael Mosley embarks on an informative and ambitious journey exploring how the evolution of scientific understanding is intimately interwoven with society's historical path.
Michael begins 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.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we join Professor Brian Cox on a whirl wind tour of the entire solar system highlighting its many wonders.
In this first episode Professor Cox explores the greatest powerhouse of them all - the sun. In India he witnesses a total solar eclipse – when the link to the light and heat that sustains us is cut off for a few precious minutes.
But heat and light are not the only power of the sun over the solar system. In Norway, Brian watches the battle between the sun’s wind and earth, as the night sky glows with the northern lights.
Beyond earth, the solar wind continues, creating dazzling aurora on other planets. Brian makes contact with Voyager, a probe that has been travelling since its launch 30 years ago. Now 14 billion kilometres away, Voyager has just detected the solar wind is beginning to peter out. But even here we haven’t reached the end of the sun’s rule.
Brian explains how its greatest power, gravity, reaches out for hundreds of billions of kilometres, where the lightest gravitational touch encircles our solar system in a mysterious cloud of comets.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we will be presenting the third installment of the new documentary series “Stargazing - A Graphic Guide to the Heavens”.
This documentary series is a wonderful introduction to the exciting field of Astronomy and covers a wonderful range of astronomical topics that is sure to bring delight to those who are beginning to take up the astronomy for the very first time. This series will help you make sense of the night sky, distinguish between constellations, and will introduce you to the wonders of the heavens observable to the naked eye. So be prepared to take a breathtaking tour through the entire celestial sphere.
Today we take a close look at the wonders of the celestial sphere seen from the Tropics and the Southern Hemisphere.
This exciting series is available on DVD at Amazon books in the United Kingdom.
Stargazing A Graphic Guide To The Heavens Part 3 – The Tropics and Southern Hemisphere
Today on Discovery Enterprise we celebrate the Golden Age of Cosmic Discovery.
In the second episode of NOVA’s “Hunting the Edge of Space” we explore how the advent of the telescope forever altered humanity's view of the Cosmos and how it revolutionized human thought across science, philosophy and religion, forever expanding humankind’s intellectual and mental horizon to the very edge of the known universe.
We are also introduced to the pioneering work of American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble who profoundly changed our understanding of the universe by demonstrating the existence of galaxies other than our own, the Milky Way. He also discovered that the degree of "Doppler shift" (specifically "redshift") observed in the light spectra from other galaxies increased in proportion to a particular galaxy's distance from Earth. This relationship became known as Hubble's law, and helped establish that the known universe is expanding.
NOVA Hunting the Edge of Space – The Ever Expanding Universe
What is so special about the planet, or should it be said, ex-planet Pluto that its demotion from major planetary to minor planet status should provoke tremendous public outcry?
Even though, the main thrust of this charge came mostly came from Pluto-loving elementary school students, one can not help but ask the question - What is it about this cold, icy and distant rock that captures so many hearts? Why is Pluto America's favorite Planet?
Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto has held a warm place in the public imagination. So, when the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium stopped calling Pluto a planet, director Neil deGrasse Tyson found himself at the center of a firestorm.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present - The Pluto Files, from the PBS series NOVA. This episode of NOVA is based on Neil deGrasse Tyson’s own wonderful book – “The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet” available from AMAZON books in the United States and the United Kingdom.
NOVA joins Tyson as he follows the story of its discovery and the science that surrounds this former planet, including the possibility of finding more Pluto-like planets in the mysterious Kuiper belt — an area of icy rocks at the edge of the solar system.
This video can be found at PBS online and Megavideo See Below:
Today on Discovery Enterprise we will take a 485 million mile journey to the planet Jupiter and visit its ice covered moon Europa, drill its icy crust and plunge into its vast alien ocean to answer a basic question - Are we alone in the universe?
In this episode of National Geographic Explorer, we will plunge headlong into the challenges of discovery on an alien world. We will meet the scientists, adventurers, and engineers who are determined to launch a mission to Europa and follow them through the challenges, frustrations, and triumphs that come with planning a mission to a distant alien world. Through the miracle of CGI we will take an unprecedented voyage into the very depths of an alien ocean in search of the strange and exotic life that may inhabit this alien abyss.
National Geographic - Explorer: Journey to an Alien Moon
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present an exciting documentary from the PBS series NOVA entitled “Hunting the Edge of Space: The Mystery of the Milky Way” which examines how the telescope has fundamentally changed our perception of the Universe.
So prepare for an edge of your seat voyage through the four hundred year history of the telescope.
Hunting the Edge of Space: The Mystery of the Milky Way
One of our newest readers inspired me to post today’s video feature on Discovery Enterprise following her interest in last Sunday’s blog post concerning the History Channel's documentary on Einstein. One comment of her’s really intrigued me concerning Einstein’s alleged involvement in the infamous Philadelphia Experiment.
The Philadelphia Experiment is the conspiracy theory regarding a naval military experiment conducted at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, conducted sometime around October 28, 1943, in which the U.S. Navy destroyer escort the USS Eldridge was to be rendered invisible or cloaked to human observers for a brief period of time. The Philadelphia Experiment is also referred to sometimes as Project Rainbow. Apparently something went amiss and ship and crew were allegedly teleported to another dimension with adverse effects to all those involved.
The rumors surrounding the fate of the USS Eldridge and her crew have persisted for nearly seventy years and has been the subjected of two major motion pictures. But, what is the true story behind the Philadelphia Experiment. Were Albert Einstein and some of the great scientific minds of wartime America engaged in the development of a new secret weapon? Did the Philadelphia Experiment unwittingly have unforeseen consequences that transported the crew of the USS Eldridge on an odyssey into the unknown and bizarre realm of trans-dimensional physics?
Find out more in today’s exclusive video feature - The True Story of the Philadelphia Experiment.
Will the human species take the course of its own future evolution into its own hands as a result of advances in genetic engineering and the merging of the human mind with advanced computer technologies? We are approaching a very uncertain future beyond which we can barely glimpse. On our immediate horizon lies Vernor Vinge's "Singularity", the point at which computers reach and surpass human intelligence. Will humans become extinct or will we merge with our machines in a symbiosis that will create a new player in the future evolutionary story of planet Earth. We are at the cross roads of evolution and what really lies ahead is anybody’s guess.
In the following BBC Horizon documentary meet the scientific prophets who claim we are on the verge of creating a new type of human - a human v2.0.
It's predicted that by 2029 computer intelligence will equal the power of the human brain. Some believe this will revolutionise humanity - we will be able to download our minds to computers extending our lives indefinitely. Others fear this will lead to our oblivion by giving rise to destructive ultra intelligent machines.
One thing they all agree on is that the coming of this moment and whatever it brings is inevitable.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present a recent documentary that appeared on the History Channel concerning Albert Einstein.
It presents the extraordinary and remarkable story of Albert Einstein and his decades long battle to prove his Theory of General Relativity amid the violence of the First World War and the tumultuous events of his personal life.
In 1907, Einstein challenged two centuries of scientific belief and Sir Isaac Newton with a mind-boggling theory: Gravity is not pulling you down. Instead, massive bodies like the Sun and the Earth are bending space and time around you, pushing you down. He then had to prove his theory to unconvinced scientists. He figured that light from a distant star, as it passes right next to the sun and the sun’s gravitational field, will be bent. And the only way to see that would be to photograph a total solar eclipse.
Negative of the 1919 solar eclipse taken from the report of Sir Arthur Eddington on the expedition to verify Einstein's prediction of the bending of light around the sun.
Fiercely competitive astronomers, foremost amongst them Arthur Stanley Eddington, raced each other to various exotic locations around the world to confirm or disprove Einstein’s prediction. Hardships, weather, and war foiled their expeditions until in 1919, first by Eddington and his team at Príncipe and later in 1922, with further confirmation at the Lick Observatory in California, the photographic proof was clearly, and without a doubt, captured. It launched Albert Einstein as a global icon celebrated around the world for his genius–and his humanity.
Author’s note: for those of you interested in the story of the remarkable war time collaboration of Arthur Stanley Eddington and Albert Einstein to prove the theory of General Relativity are invited to view “Einstein and Eddington: The Story of General Relativity” posted on Discovery Enterprise on Tuesday, November 24, 2009.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the third and final episode of Stephen Hawking’s “Into the Universe”. In this installment we delve into the mind of the world’s most famous living scientist and reveal the splendor and majesty of the universe as never seen before. We will take an odyssey across eons of time and see how the universe began, how it creates stars, black holes and life and voyage to the end of time itself and witness the closing stages of cosmic history.
Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking is one documentary series you will want to add to your collection and is available on DVD from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Stephen Hawking: Into the Universe – The Story of Everything
Today on Discovery Enterprise we are proud to present the second episode of Stephen Hawking’s epic new cosmology series “Into the Universe” In today’s installment we join Professor Hawking on a foray through the fourth dimension and explore the possibility of time travel.
The promise of time travel has long been one of the world’s favorite scientific “what-ifs?” Hawking explores all the possibilities, warping the very fabric of time and space as he goes. From killing your grandfather to riding a black hole, we learn the pitfalls and the prospects for a technology that could quite literally, change everything.
Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking is one documentary series you will want to add to your collection and is available on DVD from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Humankind has wondered since time immemorial whether or not there are other intelligent beings living elsewhere in the Universe. Only within the last century or so has the technology come into existence that would allow for a serious scientific search for such extraterrestrials. These documentary details some discoveries that have been made that might suggest the possibility of extraterrestrial life, as well as the continuing efforts by scientists to make new discoveries along those lines. "Searching For Other Life Forms" looks at the legitimate scientific attempts to find evidence of intelligent life beyond our own.
A grand overview of the universe and how it may evolve in the new millennium, this documentary reflects the vibrancy of young astronomers at the cutting edge of science. Watch as they scour the solar system and beyond for clues that will tell us not only where we've been, but perhaps where we're going. Via state-of-the art 3D graphics, the movie animates sequences from the structures of the Big Bang to the anatomy of the sun.
The Expanding Universe - Search For Other Life Forms
Today on Discovery Enterprise we take a journey to the last great unexplored wilderness on Earth – the ocean floor.
After watching this documentary dear reader please make it a point to read about a project that our blog site is closely associated with: The Atlantica Expeditions – First Undersea Colony sponsored by The League of the New Worlds.
The League of the New Worlds is a non-profit research foundation committed to the permanent human settlement of the ocean and space frontiers. The League is primarily an expedition and explorations based group. It is our express purpose to plan, design, launch and permanently occupy the unsettled regions of the world’s oceans and space. We approach our purpose with an incremental development of off-the-shelf technologies integrated with intelligence and purposeful synergy, fusing the goals of ocean and space settlement into a single enterprise called the League of the New Worlds.
Humanity in the last fifty years has made great strides in the exploration of space and has all but completed its preliminary reconnaissance of the solar system.
The scientific field of comparative planetology was born during the height of our exploration of the solar system over the past half century. And, what we learned has greatly enhanced our understanding and appreciation of the Earth.
But, In the course of explorations we have overlooked three quarters of our own world. We have left a great yawning gap in the map of our own planet and a fuller understanding of our own world. We know almost nothing about the world’s oceans. - The time has come to fill in this great unknown.
National Geographic - Earth Investigated: The Deep Investigated
On April 24th, 2010 we joined the Astronomical Community in celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the launching of the most amazing scientific instrument ever conceived – The Hubble Space Telescope. Today on Discovery Enterprise we join the world in breathless anticipation of the many exciting discoveries that lay ahead when the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is fully deployed in 2014.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope, scheduled for launch in 2014. JWST will find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, connecting the Big Bang to our own Milky Way Galaxy. JWST will peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own Solar System. JWST's instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range.
JWST will have a large mirror, 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter and a sunshield the size of a tennis court. Both the mirror and sunshade won't fit onto the rocket fully open, so both will fold up and open once JWST is in outer space. JWST will reside in an orbit about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we join BBC television naturalist Sir David Attenborough in answering a question pertinent our long term survival on this planet - How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?
Will unchecked population growth strain the carrying capacity of our planet’s natural life support systems to the breaking point?
In a Horizon special, naturalist Sir David Attenborough investigates whether the world is heading for a population crisis.
In his lengthy career, Sir David has watched the human population more than double from two and a half billion in 1950 to nearly seven billion. He reflects on the profound effects of this rapid growth, both on humans and the environment. While much of the projected growth in human population is likely to come from the developing world, it is the lifestyle enjoyed by many in the West that has the most impact on the planet. Some experts claim that in the UK consumers use as much as two and a half times their fair share of Earth’s resources.
Sir David examines whether it is the duty of individuals to commit not only to smaller families, but to change the way they live for the sake of humanity and planet Earth.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present a landmark PBS documentary entitled “400 Years of the Telescope” which is a celebration of Galileo's first telescopic observations of the cosmos in 1609, and the resulting journey of discovery for humanity that has transpired over the past four centuries.
This documentary features interviews with leading astrophysicists and cosmologists from the world's renowned universities and observatories, who explain concepts ranging from Galileo's act of revealing the cosmos with a simple telescope, to the latest discoveries in space, including startling new ideas about life on other planets and dark energy — a mysterious vacuum energy that is accelerating the expansion of the universe.
Panoramic visuals and engaging interviews made 400 Years of the Telescope the must-see documentary of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009. To heighten this intellectual voyage through time and space, be sure to visit the interactive companion website which is loaded with fascinating educational resources for all ages -- learn about planetarium programs in your area and discover local and faraway opportunities to experience our incredible universe firsthand.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we join our host physicist Dr. Basil Singer in the final installment of the exciting documentary series Exodus Earth. Dr. Singer explores the possibility of mounting an interstellar voyage to the exoplanet Gliese 581c and establishing a permanent human colony there in the next century.
What kind of propulsion system would be needed to accomplish such a voyage? Basil must investigate extreme propulsion methods, including solar sails and nuclear bombs. And, what can we say about the mission’s destination?
Gliese 581c is an extrasolar planet orbiting the red dwarf star Gliese 581. It is the third planet orbiting this star. With a mass at least 5.36 times that of the Earth, it is classified as a super-Earth, a category which incorporates planets exceeding the mass of Earth but smaller than 10 Earth masses.
Gliese 581c initially generated interest because it was originally reported to be the first potentially Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of its star, with a temperature right for liquid water on its surface, and by extension, potentially capable of supporting extremophile forms of Earth-like life. However, further research on the potential effects of the planetary atmosphere casts doubt upon the habitability of Gliese 581c and indicates that the fourth planet in the system, Gliese 581 d, is a better candidate for habitability and possible colonization.
However this is based on scant observational evidence. One day we may find a more promising contender for our future aspirations. The prospects may vastly improve when the Kepler space telescope completes its survey and with the next generation space based advanced astronomical observatories such as NASA’s Terrestrial Planet Finder, the James Webb Space Telescope and their successors.
