TED Talks
TED: The probe on a mission to touch the Sun | Nour E. Rawafi
From its life-sustaining energy to its explosive geomagnetic storms, the Sun has many mysteries, says astrophysicist Nour E. Rawafi. He sheds light on NASA's latest endeavor to better understand our fiery neighbor and its impact on the...
MinutePhysics
Is There Poop on the Moon ft. SmarterEveryDay
What else did we leave on the moon? Smarter Every Day explains
SciShow
Photonic Propulsion: Mars in 3 Days?
We can get to Mars in 3 days, . . .sort of, maybe. In this episode of SciShow Space Reid Reimers explains the possibilities of photonic propulsion in use with space travel.
SciShow
Reducing Space Waste Before, During, and After Missions | Compilation
Right now, discarded parts from old spacecraft, bags of pee, and dead probes are just floating around in space, but it doesn’t have to be like that. Let's take a look at some of the ways we've figured out to reduce, reuse, and recycle in...
SciShow
The Asteroid That Nearly Swallowed OSIRIS-Rex
It's always an asteroid heading straight toward us that we worry about, never what happens to us when we head straight toward the asteroid. OSIRIS-REx's experience with Bennu tells us it's worth a thought.
SciShow
The One-Second Success Story of Venera 7
Venus may have been named after the Roman goddess of beauty, but once humans started sending spacecraft to the planet next door, we quickly learned that beauty… hurts.
SciShow
Hayabusa: The Artificial Meteor Launched From An Asteroid
After we retrieved samples of the moon, it was quite a while before we could land on anything else and bring bits of it back home.
SciShow
The Spacecraft That Wasn't Designed To Land, But Did
Many space missions take billions of dollars and decades of work to get develop, but 25 years ago this spacecraft delivered stunning results on a shoestring budget and a minimal development timeline.
SciShow
What's Going to Space in 2023?
2022 was a pretty exciting year for space science, but what news might we expect in the coming year?
SciShow
Eavesdropping On Other Worlds
We usually only get to use our sense of sight in exploring the universe, but that hasn’t prevented scientists from trying to listen in.
PBS
Could LIGO Find MASSIVE Alien Spaceships?
Whenever we open a new window on the universe, we discover things that no one expected. Our newfound ability to measure ripples in the fabric of spacetime—gravitational waves—is a very new window, and so far we’ve seen a lot of wild...
PBS
100 Years of Relativity + Challenge Winners!
The results are in - on this weeks episode of Spacetime we reveal the answer to our Asteroid Challenge, as well as our T-shirt winners! Check out who saved the world!
SciShow
Meet Nell: The Skeleton Rocket That Flew
In 1926, Robert Goddard launched Nell — the very first (successful) liquid fuel rocket. But Nell wasn't built like other modern rockets, including a notable lack of casing and an exhaust nozzle suspended above the propellant tanks.
SciShow
What Are We REALLY Using Space Lasers For?
Ever since we started launching stuff into space, we've communicated with spacecraft (and astronauts) using radio waves. But over the past few decades, scientists have experimented with a new technique that could make things a lot more...
MinutePhysics
The Rocket & String Paradox
This video is about Bell's Spaceship Paradox of Special Relativity, wherein a pair of rockets (or spacecraft) connected by a weak thread accelerate with uniform acceleration, maintaining the same separation, and the question is: does the...
SciShow
Astronomy’s Unsung Hero is a Plain Ol’ Aluminum Ball
In 1965, MIT's Lincoln Laboratory saw their Lincoln Calibration Sphere 1 (LCS-1) launched into Earth orbit. It was an empty aluminum sphere and couldn't do any science of its own. But the world's most boring disco ball has played a huge...
SciShow
3 Things You Didn't Know About Voyager
Hank tells us three things we probably didn't know about the Voyager 1 spacecraft.
SciShow
Spacecraft Need New Heat Shields. Cue the Cuttlefish?
Scientists are always searching for new materials that maximize strength and thermal protection while also minimizing mass for space flight. So, when developing new heat shields, why are they looking to cuttlefish for inspiration?
SciShow
Thrusters That Eat Teflon! Pulsed Plasma Thrusters
Pulsed plasma thrusters use the same stuff that’s on your frying pan to make spacecraft zoom around the universe. And they’ve been doing it since the 1960s.
MinutePhysics
Why It's HARD To Land on Mars
This video is about why it's harder to successfully land spacecraft and landers and rovers on Mars than on Earth, or Venus, or the Moon, or Titan, or asteroids. It all comes down to atmospheric density! When there's no atmosphere, you...
PBS
How Close To The Sun Can Humanity Get?
The Sun: an entity worshipped as a god throughout time and across cultures. The source of all life and sustenance for our little blue space rock, and also a force of unthinkable destructive power. But soon humanity will reach out its...
SciShow
The Pioneer Probes Are Way Off-Course
The Pioneer 10 and 11 probes were launched to explore outer space, but in the 80s scientists discovered they were veering off-course, and we had no idea why!
SciShow
The Secrets Underneath Jupiter's Atmosphere
We’ve probed some 250 kilometers into Jupiter’s atmosphere, and that’s raised some new questions about the mysterious planet. And we’ve taken another important step in looking for life on Mars by using a common chemistry process for the...
SciShow
We Land on a Comet!
SciShow Space News gives you the update of the historic mission that has, for the first time ever, landed a spacecraft on the surface of a comet!