Science and Society Lecture

Pre-ses­sional Lec­ture 19.06.2018

Diploma Lecture 2014

A unique journey around the weird and wonderful planet that we call home.

With unique access to Nasa, Brian Cox follows Perseverance rover’s search for life on Mars during a critical seven-day period as it undertakes an epic journey across the red planet.

Discovering our place in the universe. Brian Cox looks back on a decade of discovery and towards the next space frontier, asking the biggest question of all - what's next?

Four British astronomers celebrate 50 years of work and friendship by going on a road trip to revisit some of the world's greatest observatories.

Star Men celebrates the history of stargazing - the inventions and discoveries that have enabled us to learn so much about the universe, but more importantly to understand how much more we have yet to discover.

The story of the race to the Moon, from the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 to Apollo 11, and the first man to set foot on the Moon, in 1969.

Documentary stories detailing America's determination to put a man on the moon ahead of Soviet Russia, beginning with how the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 compelled the USA to join the Space Race.

In little more than six months, America's John Glenn had matched Yuri Gagarin's feat of orbiting the Earth. But it was an event back on Earth that spurred America's ambition to win the Space Race.

On 27 January 1967, the disastrous failure of Apollo 1 risked the cancellation of America's space programme altogether.

Within two years of the Apollo 1 fire, Apollo 8 became the first manned mission to escape the Earth's gravity and orbit the moon

As Nasa chooses which astronauts will crew Apollo 11, the Soviet Union announces that it intends to schedule a mission to the moon of its own to coincide with America's lunar landing.

The success of Apollo 11 suggested the beginning of a new age of exploration. Instead, the lunar landing proved to be the highpoint of manned missions into space.

Astronomer Carl Sagan leads us on an engaging guided tour of the universe, bringing such topics as Einstein\\\'s theory of relativity and Darwin\\\'s theory of evolution down to a layman\\\'s level of understanding. The first episode opens with a description of the cosmos and introduces the iconic \\\'Spaceship of the Imagination\\\'

It's a voyage of exploration like no other - to Titan, Saturn's largest moon and thought to resemble our own early Earth. For a small team of British scientists this would be the culmination of a lifetime's endeavour - the flight alone, some 2 billion miles, would take a full seven years. This is the story of the space probe they built, the sacrifices they made and their hopes for the landing.

The moon is such a familiar presence in the sky that most of us take it for granted. But what if it wasn't where it is now? How would that affect life on earth?

Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to discover what the universe might actually look like.

The second part, Nothing, explores science at the very limits of human perception, where we now understand the deepest mysteries of the universe lie. Jim sets out to answer one very simple question - what is nothing?

A fundamental force of nature, gravity shapes our entire universe. It sculpts galaxies and warps space and time. But gravity’s strange powers also affect our daily lives in the most unexpected ways. This is a story with surprises in store for Jim himself. In telling the story of gravity, his own understanding of the nature of reality comes to be challenged.

The search for extra-terrestrial life has been going for 50 years - but there's been a recent breakthrough. Astronomers have discovered a new planet called Gliese 581 c. It is the most Earth-like planet ever found. It orbits a star and may have habitats capable of supporting life. NASA hopes to find 50 more Earth-like planets by the end of the decade, all of which increases the chance that alien life has begun elsewhere.

A chance to look back at a classic Horizon special in which James Burke looks at space exploration and exploitation. Originally transmitted in 1984, James begins by looking at the Apollo XI moon landing, before moving on to future space plans for humankind.

Forget the Big Bang. The real moment of creation was the moment of first light, the moment the first stars were born. Horizon tells the scientific version of the story of Genesis.

Horizon investigates the cosmic dawn, the moment one hundred million years after the big bang when the first stars were born.

Scientists genuinely don't know what most of our universe is made of. The atoms we're made from only make up four per cent. The rest is dark matter and dark energy (for 'dark', read 'don't know'). The Large Hadron Collider at CERN has been upgraded. When it's switched on in March 2015, its collisions will have twice the energy they did before. The hope is that scientists will discover the identity of dark matter in the debris.

Scientists genuinely don't know what most of our universe is made of. The atoms we're made from only make up four per cent. The rest is dark matter and dark energy (for 'dark', read 'don't know'). The Large Hadron Collider at CERN has been upgraded. When it's switched on in March 2015, its collisions will have twice the energy they did before. The hope is that scientists will discover the identity of dark matter in the debris.