SEA: Space Exploration & Astronomy

Far beyond the reaches of the four rocky planets, we find our Solar System's showpiece worlds- the two gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn. As the two largest planets, they both make tantalising targets for probes exploring the planetary neighbourhood, but both lie significantly further from the sun than the Earth and its terrestrial neighbours. But early in the 1970s, the technology for deep space voy...

In 2012, the world’s most advanced science experiment uncovered the signature of the Higgs Boson, the so-called “God Particle” which gives particles their masses. The Higgs was the last of the Standard Model's particles to be verified experimentally. But far from closing the case, it instead opened a new frontier in physics that today embodies everything we still don’t know about nature’s smal...

Why does the universe choose life over silence? Why has its once inanimate matter and energy come alive on planet Earth? Is it chance? Fate? Or even, by design? It is this profound question that has plagued our conscious minds since the time of our earliest ancestors, and it is going to be the topic of our video today. This video is my oldest idea, and I was planning for it as early as 2021. A mas...

Can we ever turn back the clock? On Earth, Time is rigid and immovable, but in space, it's practically the opposite. Out in the cosmos, time is another dimension alongside the three of space- but unlike in 3D space, there is only one way we seem to be able to move through time. The cause of this directionality, and so-called "Arrow of Time" through the cosmos, makes up the topic of o...

Tick. Tock. It's a sound you probably hear several times a day. Time dominates virtually every aspect of our lives, attuned to the rigid, unflinching regularity of Hours, Minutes and Seconds. The question how did our ancient ancestors figure out these units? Who came up with the concepts of timekeeping, like Minutes and Seconds, and why are there 60 of them, and not say, 100? The answers to su...

Aliens. They already roam this planet, but not on its surface or in the skies. Rather, they lie at the crushing depths of the vast, sprawling oceans. And so in this episode, we'll be swapping the familiar frontier of space for that of the deep ocean, as we plunge into the abyss in search of Leviathans- massive, monstrous marine specimens that have stalked the high seas for almost half a billio...

On the dark, secluded underside of our planet, we find its most alien continent, Antarctica. A frozen desert larger than Europe, lying atop a sheet containing more than 90% of the world’s ice. But buried beneath this frosty surface, lie fossils and relics from an age where Antarctica was wildly different- covered not by ice, but by forests of trees. SOUNDTRACK: "Black Star" - Lustmord So...

Long ago, the Earth's seven continents were assembled in a giant, sprawling supercontinent known as Pangea. You may've heard of it, but what is often less talked about is what came before. Our planet's current continental chunks have been smashing together and separating for over four billion years, and there have been more than a few "supercontinents" during that time. It is...

As rich and life-supporting as the Earth is today, it was once nothing more than a column of dust, dancing in a scorched cyclone of gas. And just how we as humans managed to emerge from this ancient dust makes up the topic of this video today. So join us, as we wind the cosmic clock backwards almost five billion years, from you and I in the present, all the way back to the birth of the solar Syste...

Do we live in a cosmic void? It might sound like an odd question, but it’s something scientists have debated for decades. Does the Milky Way exist in a region of low cosmic density which is warping our view of the local universe as a result? The answer goes far deeper than you probably realise- and it’s just one of the many perplexing mysteries we’ll be diving into during this video, where voids a...

Lying at the cores of most large galaxies, do we find the “largest” type of object in the universe- a supermassive “engine” black hole. They almost always have masses many millions of times that of the sun, while the biggest grow to tens of billions. Exactly what was responsible for seeding these great engines, and building up their immense sizes, is a challenge only the James Webb Telescope can r...

Laced within the cold, desolate swathes of the space between stars, lie myriad orphaned planets not tethered to a particular system. They are lost worlds floating in the dark, and there are likely tens of billions in the Milky Way galaxy alone. Today, we will journey through the galaxy in search of these lost worlds in the darkness of interstellar space, and sometimes even, intergalactic space. SO...

The universe as we experience it is rendered by myriad physical processes and interactions, but they all can be boiled down to one of four fundamental forces of nature. Gravity is one of these fundamental interactions, while the visible light we observe makes up part of another. And by understanding all four, we can gage comprehensive insights into our reality, from its tiniest particles to its la...

What is the Sound of Space? The idea that it is a silent vacuum, completely devoid of any noise, is somewhat a misconception. And though sound as humans hear it can't travel in space, there are several way in which we can extract the anthems of the cosmos. And in this video, we'll be doing just that, as we embark on a journey of Sound in Space. SOUNDTRACK: - Uranus Sounds: https://youtu.be...

Are we living in a multiverse? If so, where are all the other universes? Scientists and philosophers have pondered these questions for centuries, as they contemplated the possibility of parallel universes. The multiverse theory is not often discussed by cosmologists, due to its speculative and untestable nature. However, there are myriad different interpretations depicting how a multiverse might m...

In the late 1960s, a series of anomalous, repeating radio sources began cropping up all over the Milky Way galaxy, and though initially speculated to be messages from aliens, we soon learned that they are Pulsars, a rapidly rotating neutron star emitting high volumes of radiation. In this video, we will revisit these extreme, dense objects, as the final gateway faced by matter before it collapses...

How did Earth get its moon? Why is Mercury so close to the sun? Why does Uranus orbit on its side? The answers to all of these questions are the many collisions that ravaged the early Solar System. Each of our neighbouring worlds bears scars which echo their violent past, from the many craters of the moon's battered surface, to the sideways rings of the planet Uranus. And in this video, we will ex...

The Sun... both the giver of life, and destroyer of worlds. Host of the eight planets, and incubator of Earth with its light and heat. Yet in spite of its brilliance, the true nature of the sun's power remains shrouded in mystery, with scientists unable to explain many of the processes playing out in its atmosphere. But in 2024, NASA will attain their closest glimpse of the sun so far, as they...

It's been more than half a century since humans last went to the Moon. But we will return before the decade is up, through NASA's revolutionary Artemis Program. But unlike its ancestral Apollo Program, Project Artemis is about more than just landing astronauts on the lunar surface. Its endgame is to enable us to stay there, and keep going back to a semi-permanent surface habitat- all in pr...

Of all the spacecraft to have visited other worlds, there are two which have travelled further than any other, discovering more about the Solar System than their inventors ever could have imagined. They are the legendary pair of Voyager Probes- still the only spacecraft ever to have visited the Ice Giant planets, Uranus and Neptune. The story of their 40 years in space makes up the topic of our vi...

From studying the dusty surface of Mars, to plunging into the atmosphere of Venus, over the last 60 years, we've launched hundreds of probes into space on trajectories to visit each of the terrestrial planets. But for all the fascinating discoveries made on the way, humanity's journey towards the stars started out in a much darker place- a battlefront between the world's then two great...

Earth is a success story, a thriving world that has hosted life for almost 4 billion years. But, no matter how peaceful things are now, a new age is coming for the Solar System. An age of change, destruction and evolution. A place for new worlds and new stories, but one in which the Earth has no place. MUSIC: - Dreamscape - Density & Time - The Unknown - CO.AG Music - https://youtu.be/IFYTGVE1...

The Solar System is vast and diverse, home to eight large planets, including one which gave rise to life. While humanity was born too late to witness the events that occurred at the birth of the Solar System first-hand, by peering into the surroundings of others stars, we are starting to piece together the events that unfolded at the birth of our own Solar System. Today, we shall explore the culmi...

On December 25th, 2021, NASA's most sophisticated, ground-breaking and expensive observatory ever blasted off from the Earth. The James Webb Telescope is an infrared observatory, capable of looking back all the way to the universe's first light. In this video, we will explore how this initiative came to be, and what the future holds in this exciting new age of astronomy. SOUNDTRACK: - Valhalla [Lo...

Black holes are fascinating in so many ways- especially when you put two of them together. Their resonance and orbit physically ripples space itself, emitting waves that can travel through space for billions of years. Since 2016, we have been able to detect these gravitational wave events, and earlier this month, we detected a record-breaking one. SOUNDTRACK: - Wander - Emitt Fenn (YouTube Audio L...