12 of 59 results for "space exploration"
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Neil Armstrong: A Giant Leap Amid the Space Race

In Neil Armstrong: A Giant Leap Amid the Space Race, host Dermot O'Leary explores the incredible journey to the Moon made by Neil Armstrong. Against the backdrop of the Cold War and an arms race that propelled space exploration, Armstrong's historic lunar landing reshaped humanity's perspective of our place in the Universe. This video is excerpted from BBC’s Icons: The Greatest Person of the 20th Century, a documentary series celebrating the achievements of the most influential figures of the era.

Student Article
Everything You Need to Know About Space Travel (Almost)
The article "Everything You Need to Know About Space Travel (Almost)" from BBC Science Focus covers the history of space travel, its importance for science and humanity, the challenges of interstellar travel, and the benefits of space exploration.
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Voyager 1: The Grand Tour
In Voyager 1: The Grand Tour, Professor Brian Cox discusses how the Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched in 1977, continues to send signals back to Earth from its journey to the outer reaches of our Solar System. Learn about the groundbreaking space exploration efforts of the Voyager missions, especially its role in mapping the solar wind’s reach and helping scientists understand the auroras occurring on distant planets like Jupiter and Saturn. Using images from the Hubble Space Telescope and data from Voyager 1, scientists are unraveling the mysteries of the Solar System's farthest edges.
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Landing on Mars: Challenges and Triumphs of Reaching the Red Planet
In Landing on Mars: Challenges and Triumphs of Reaching the Red Planet, Dr. Adam Steltzner and his team work to solve the challenges of landing spacecraft on Mars, especially when dealing with heavier crewed flights. Learn how innovative approaches, such as using retropropulsion and landing sideways, may address these issues. This video is excerpted from BBC’s The Big Thinkers, Should We Go to Mars?, where Dr Kevin Fong explores the complex scientific and technological hurdles of space exploration.
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Discovering a New Planet: The Search for Hidden Worlds
In Discovering a New Planet: The Search for Hidden Worlds, Professor Stephane Udry is part of a team that developed a detector to search for life-bearing planets. While observing a distant star, they detected its light "wobbling," which indicated the presence of a massive planet — the first exoplanet discovered outside our Solar System. This video is excerpted from BBC's Earth: The Power of the Planet, a documentary that explores the fascinating geology on planet Earth.
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Searching for Life in Our Universe Using Math
In Searching for Life in Our Universe Using Math, scientists explore how math can be used to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. Learn about Frank Drake's famous equation, which considers factors such as the rate of star formation, the number of stars with planets, and the potential for life on those planets. Despite the vastness of the Universe, the equation relies on factors that are still largely unknown, making the search for intelligent life a complex and ongoing challenge.
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The Heart and Lungs of the World

In The Heart and Lungs of the World, learn how the Amazon rainforest plays a critical role in regulating the Earth's climate by recycling water from the trees into the atmosphere. The Amazon takes in and pumps out water, which creates moisture that forms clouds and produces rain. With 400 billion trees cycling water, this process significantly influences global weather patterns, including rainfall in regions far from the rainforest itself, such as the United States’ Midwest. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.

Student Article
Top 10 Heaviest Spacecraft Ever Launched
The article "Top 10 Heaviest Spacecraft Ever Launched" from BBC Science Focus examines the most massive spacecraft to have flown in Earth's orbit and beyond.
Student Article
The Women Who Helped Launch Apollo: The Unsung Heroes of the Moon Mission
The article "The Women Who Helped Launch Apollo: The Unsung Heroes of the Moon Mission" from BBC Science Focus reveals the overlooked contributions of women to the Apollo program. It recounts the vital roles played by female engineers, programmers, and seamstresses, such as JoAnn Morgan, Margaret Hamilton, and Judith Love Cohen, whose expertise helped make the Moon landing possible.
Student Article
Water Found Buried Under Mars's Equator
The article "Water found buried under Mars equator" from BBC Science Focus showcases the discovery of ice beneath Mars' equator using data from ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. This finding could be crucial for future human missions to Mars, as the ice deposits could provide a valuable water source.
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Scientists Competing to Find Exoplanets: The Global Race to Discover New Worlds
In Scientists Competing to Find Exoplanets: The Global Race to Discover New Worlds, learn how the Kepler telescope, launched in 2009, revolutionized the search for exoplanets by detecting a “wink” of light when a planet passes in front of its star. Despite the challenges of detecting distant planets, scientists work together, competing to be the first to discover intelligent life on another planet.
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Slingshotting Through Space: Exploring Uranus and Neptune

In Slingshotting Through Space: Exploring Uranus and Neptune, Professor Brian Cox explains why Uranus and Neptune are so difficult to reach, and how the Voyager expedition took advantage of a planetary event that happens every few hundred years to speed through space so we could get a glimpse of these distant planets. This video is excerpted from BBC’s Brian Cox’s Adventures in Space and Time, a series that seeks to explain our place in the Universe. Professor Brian Cox looks back on decades of discovery and toward the next frontier in space, pondering the question: What’s next?