Astronomy

This is the story of two of the biggest scientific breakthroughs of the 21st century, told by the incredible scientists who made them happen. The first is LIGO’s measurement of gravitational waves coming from a black hole merger, and the second, the Event Horizon Telescope’s image of a black hole.

Recently, the Event Horizon Telescope project captured the first image ever of a black hole. Now, new discoveries might finally reveal how supermassive black holes are made, and using the latest technology, experts are on the verge of understanding how these monsters grow and how they affect life on our planet.
Supermassive black holes: Gargantuan monsters that lurk at the center of galaxies. Right now you are travelling at half a million miles an hour around a giant black hole four million times the mass of the sun. But there's a mystery about these colossal beasts. We have no idea where they came from. How did they get so big so quickly?

For all of human history, the Sun, our home star, has measured our days and our seasons while fueling all life on Earth. Yet it remains an enigma. NASA's Parker Probe Plus is on a mission to change that, flying through dangerous radiation to become the closest spaceship to orbit our Sun.
It's a journey to the center of our solar system, a mission to gather information about the most critical celestial body in the sky, our star.

Almost everything we know today about the beautiful giant ringed planet comes from Cassini, the NASA mission that launched in 1997 and arrived at Saturn in 2004. Since then, the space probe has been beaming home miraculous images and scientific data, revealing countless wonders about the planet, its rings and 62 moons - including some that could harbor life. When the mission approached its final days, it attempted one last set of daring maneuvers - diving between the innermost ring and the top of Saturn's atmosphere.
Aiming to skim less than 2000 miles above the cloud tops, no spacecraft has ever gone so close to Saturn, and hopes were high for incredible observations that could solve major mysteries about the planet's core. But such a daring maneuver comes with many risks and is no slam dunk. In fact, slamming into rocks in the rings is a real possibility. Join NASA engineers for the tense and triumphant moments as they find out if their bold re-programming has worked, and discover the wonders that Cassini has revealed over the years.

Looking back on the major stories of the year - from the New Horizons mission to the most distant world we have ever visited to the release of the first-ever picture of a black hole. The team relive the highlights and uncover the latest developments.

How is the universe put together? How is it built? And how does it actually work? How the Universe Works Series 8 shows the inner workings of our planet, the solar system, the galaxies and the universe itself.
In the first episode, if a massive asteroid collides with earth, it could end life on our planet as we know it. New discoveries and cutting-edge tech reveal just how close we are to apocalypse and what it would take for the world's leading space agencies to stop it.