Journey to Palomar, America's First Journey Into Space (2010)

Beyond Hubble: Launching the Telescope of Tomorrow

Following engineers and scientists on a groundbreaking mission as they build, test and launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful observatory ever constructed, and discovers the astonishing cosmological mysteries it will investigate.

Die Sonne

Plot unavailable

The Secret Life of the Sun

Kate Humble and Helen Czerski reveal the inner workings of the sun and investigate why scientists think changes in the sun's behaviour may have powerful effects on our climate.

Stargazing Challenges

Blue Peter presenters Helen Skelton and Barney Harwood want to learn more about the solar system so they challenge scientists Helen Czerski and Jem Stansfield to find out more. They look at how to make telescopes and rockets, and use a toilet roll to measure the distances between planets.

Telescope

A history of the telescope and a look at the James Webb telescope, and at the universe through the eyes of scientists and telescopes since the beginning.

Cosmis Flows: The Cartographers of the Universe

Man has always sought to seek further afield. After the seafaring explorers of the 16th century, 21st century cosmologists today navigate more celestial oceans, with each mission providing an ever-broader and more impressive cartography of our surroundings. At the avant garde of modern technology, these strange travellers are actually immobile, and their vessels are powerful and spectacular telescopes, on the Earth or in space, constantly widening the limits of our knowledge and giving form to our dreams of infinity. From Hawaii to Australia, via South Africa and China, we set out on an incredible scientific and human adventure to visit the planet's greatest cosmic exploration centres to discover the new challenges involved in understanding the universe. A journey on Earth and in the heavens that will take your breath away!

Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege

Although the mountain volcano Mauna Kea last erupted around 4,000 years ago, it is still hot today, the center of a burning controversy over whether its summit should be used for astronomical observatories or preserved as a cultural landscape sacred to the Hawaiian people. For five years the documentary production team Nā Maka o ka 'Āina ("the eyes of the land") captured on video the seasonal moods of Mauna Kea's unique 14,000-foot summit, the richly varied ecosystems that extend from sea level to alpine zone, the legends and stories that reveal the mountain's geologic and cultural history, and the political turbulence surrounding the efforts to protect the most significant temple in the islands: the mountain itself.

The Comet

Shortfilm based on released by ESA over 400000 images from Rosettas comet mission.

400 Years of the Telescope

A documentary chronicling the history of the telescope from the time of Galileo. Featuring interviews with leading scientists discussing Galileo's first use of the telescope to the latest discoveries in cosmology.

Ode to the Sun: An Art History

A look at the Sun, the star that revolves at the center of the Solar System, and its representation in art throughout history.

Passage of Venus

Photo sequence of the rare transit of Venus over the face of the Sun, one of the first chronophotographic sequences. In 1873, P.J.C. Janssen, or Pierre Jules César Janssen, invented the Photographic Revolver, which captured a series of images in a row. The device, automatic, produced images in a row without human intervention, being used to serve as photographic evidence of the passage of Venus before the Sun, in 1874.

Twinkl

Martinique Island, 1974. Inspired by the writings of the Martiniquais poet and politician Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), the dreamer Robert Saint-Rose, known as Zétwall (Star in Creole), aspires to be the first Frenchman to step on the lunar surface.

Black Hole Hunters

A team of international scientists attempt to document the first-ever image of a black hole.

The Hunt for Dark Matter

CERN and the University of California-Santa Barbara are collaborating in the search for the elusive substance that physicists and astronomers believe holds the universe together -- dark matter. Where is this search now in the realm of particle physics and what comes next?

Prehistoric Astronomers

Cave paintings and lunar calendars exist in the caves and remains of prehistoric hunters studied recently. What if Prehistoric Man were clever enough to develop in depth scientific knowledge? As unlikely as it may seem, new data tend to prove that Prehistoric Man actually invented Astronomy!

The UFO Movie THEY Don't Want You to See

In an age when misinformation, alternative facts, and conspiracy theories have become mainstream, UFOs have risen to become one of the most-talked about pop culture phenomena. With all of this noise, how can we expect anyone to know how much of this is true? What is in our skies? What do we know, and how do we know it? And most importantly: Are we being visited?

ROT54: Armenia's Forgotten Space Giant

Armenian radio-engineer Arevik Sargsyan has struggled throughout her life to preserve ROT54, a giant telescope built by her uncle in the 1980s. But the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that ROT54 was left abandoned for 30 years. Now, Arevik is attempting to take control of the telescope and prove it still works.

From the Atoms to the Stars

An incredible travel through space and time between the walls of the Paris Observatory, which is celebrating its 350th birthday. Place of discoveries such as speed of light or Neptune’s existence, it is still today one of the oldest operating observatories and the greatest hub in the world for astronomy and astrophysics researches, second only to Harvard.

FAST: The Celestial Eye

China's FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope) can detect radio signals emitted tens of thousands of light-years away, and engineers have faced unprecedented challenges in constructing a giant radio receptor nestled amid mountains. From novel technological innovations to architectural challenges, we follow every step that gave birth to the biggest radio telescope ever constructed.

Splendour of the Heavens

A film about astronomy which also happens to show views of the ancient city of Winchester, before focussing on a particular house in the suburbs with its own observatory.

Ambassadors of the Sky

Canada is leading the way when it comes to dark sky preservation and the fight against light pollution. See how dark sky preserves in Wood Buffalo, Jasper and Elk Island National Parks educate the public about the importance of protecting the night sky for the health of humans and wildlife. Then visit star parties in British Columbia and Alberta where amateur astronomers and astrophotographers watch and celebrate the night sky.

Shadow Chasers

This feature-length documentary is a portrait of eclipse chasers, people for whom solar eclipses - among nature's more spectacular phenomena – are a veritable obsession. The film follows 4 of them as they travel incredible distances to witness the last total eclipse of the millennium as it sweeps eastward across Europe to India. At various points along the way enthusiasts Alain Cirou in France, Paul Houde in Austria, Olivier Staiger in Germany and Debasis Sarkar in India offer their impressions of the historic event.

Venus: Death of a Planet

Billions of years ago, Venus may have harbored life-giving habitats similar to those on the early Earth. Today, Earth's twin is a planet knocked upside down and turned inside out. Its burned-out surface is a global fossil of volcanic destruction, shrouded in a dense, toxic atmosphere. Scientists are now unveiling daring new strategies to search for clues from a time when the planet was alive.

TimeScapes

Stunning slow-motion and timelapse cinematography of the landscapes, people and wildlife of the American South West.

Searching for Planet 9

At the edge of our solar system supposedly lies an immense planet. Five to ten times the size of the Earth. Several international teams of scientists have been competing in a frantic race to detect it, in uncharted territories, far beyond Neptune. The recent discovery of several dwarf planets, with intriguing trajectories, have put astronomers on the trail of this mysterious planet. Why is this enigmatic planet so difficult to detect? What would a ninth planet teach us about our corner of the universe? Could it help us unlock some of the mysteries of our solar system?

Black Holes: Messages from the Edge of the Universe

It is the birth of neutrino astronomy. For the first time, astrophysicists can detect extra-terrestrial neutrinos in ice on the South Pole. The fundamental questions of science remain unanswered., how did the universe come to be? What keeps our world together? The newly discovered extra-galactic neutrinos may hold the keys to answering these questions.

Chasing the Equinox

The ancients hid the secrets of their incredible knowledge of astronomy in their temples and palaces, built to align with the sun, on the same day, all over the world. Revealing our species' obsession with the sun, across thousands of years and every continent, this is architectural magic on a cosmic scale.

Cosmic Fireballs

214 million years ago a gigantic meteorite broke up and impacted Earth. 65 million years ago, the impact that killed the dinosaurs occurred where the country of Belize stands today. 200 thousand years ago early humans were walking and died when they were hit by a 40 meter wide meteorite hit South Africa creating a 1.4 km wide crater. This meteorite fragment, the largest ever found hit Namibia 80 000 years ago and more recently a major impact occurred in Toungouska, Russia in 1908. Every year 10 000 tons of meteoritic matter fall onto Earth in much smaller but not necessarily less influential pieces. This film will explore how the impact of these meteorites big and small through the ages have changed our world and what they brought from outer space with them that may have been the seed of life itself on Earth.