PBS
Does Time Cause Gravity?
We know that gravity must cause clocks to run slow on the basis of logical consistency. And we know that gravity DOES cause clocks to run slow based on many brilliant experiments. But I never explained WHY or HOW gravity causes the flow...
PBS
What’s Wrong With the Big Bang Theory? | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
Now that we have a primer on the aspects of the Big Bang Theory that we know definitely happened, let’s look further into what we don’t yet know, and how the theory could progress in the future. Since there is a discrepancy between...
PBS
The Quantum Experiment that Broke Reality | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
The double slit experiment radically changed the way we understand reality. Find out what the ramifications of this experiment were and how we can use it to better comprehend our universe.
PBS
How the Quantum Eraser Rewrites the Past | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
Causality is meant to move in one direction: forward. But the Quantum Eraser experiment seems to reverse causality. How and why can this happen and what are the implications of this experiment on how we understand Quantum Mechanics and...
PBS
The Trebuchet Challenge | Space Time
Kinetic and potential energy are defined as combinations of more basic quantities: position, velocity and mass. These combinations are chosen so that their sum is conserved. It’s actually remarkable that there’s any such combination of...
PBS
Where Did Water Come From?
Mercury, Venus, and Mars are all super low on water – so where did ours come from and why do we have so much of it? We think our water came from a few unlikely sources: meteorites, space dust, and even the sun.
PBS
What If Dark Matter Is Just Black Holes?
It may be that for every star in the universe there are billions of microscopic black holes streaming through the solar system, the planet, even our bodies every second. Sounds horrible - but hey, at least we’d have explained dark matter.
PBS
Why Quantum Computing Requires Quantum Cryptography
Quantum computing is cool, but you know what would be extra awesome - a quantum internet. In fact if we want the first we’ll need the latter. And the first step to the quantum internet is quantum cryptography.
PBS
The Evolution of the Modern Milky Way Galaxy
When we scan the heavens with giant telescopes we see galactic cannibalism everywhere. We see moments that appear frozen on the human timescale, but are really snapshots of the incredibly violent process of galaxy formation. This is how...
PBS
The Alchemy of Neutron Star Collisions
Carl Sagan’s famous words: “We are star stuff” refers to a mind-blowing idea – that most atomic nuclei in our bodies were created in the nuclear furnace and the explosive deaths of stars that lived in the ancient universe. In recent...
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The Strange Cosmic Origin of Earth’s Most Precious Metals
Precious metals like gold, silver, platinum, and rhodium are expensive because they're rare in Earth's crust. But are they rare in the universe? Why is it so hard to make some of the chemical elements? Where do heavy metals come from,...
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The Most Unbelievable Image Ever Captured by Hubble Space Telescope
The Most Unbelievable Image Ever Captured by Hubble Space Telescope
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Sunlight Is Way Older Than You Think. Here’s Why…
If the sun instantly switched off like a light bulb–which can’t happen, by the way–then we wouldn’t know for almost 8 and a half minutes. Light travels at the fastest speed there is, but it still takes almost 500 seconds to get to Earth....
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Is This Why We Haven’t Found Alien Civilizations? | STELLAR
Looking up at the stars makes you wonder: what and who is out there? And why haven’t we seen any other intelligent civilizations given the vast size and age of the universe? They’re complicated questions and although we haven’t met any...
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Is There Life on Earth?
If we lived light years from Earth, how would we know there’s life here? Let’s take a look at the search for extraterrestrial life on habitable exoplanets, and discover what biosignatures would show someone else that we’re here.
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How To See a Black Hole with a Planet-Sized Telescope | STELLAR
It took about a century for black holes to go from impossible, to theoretical, to real. And it was just this year, in 2019, when we finally saw the first picture of a black hole! But how to you take a photo of something so massively...
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Why We Should Launch Rockets From the Moon
Half a century ago, astronauts got on top of a really big rocket and sent a tiny little capsule on a 384,000 km trip to the moon and back. And they were able to do it because a lot of extremely smart and dedicated people pushed...
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Why No One Can See the Stars Anymore
It never gets dark anymore. Not REALLY dark, anyway. Not like it used to. Light pollution is not only making it more difficult to see the night sky, but it's also affecting our health. For the past century and a half, since the dawn of...
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This Is How Astronauts Drink Coffee In Space!
I love coffee. Like, a lot. You know who else loves coffee? Astronauts! And also the people who help them do awesome things in space (I think NASA might be powered by coffee). But how do astronauts actually drink coffee in space, aboard...
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Apollo’s Most Important Discovery (Inside NASA’s Moon Rock Vault!)
Fifty years ago, we sent the first astronauts to walk on the moon’s face. But what they brought back is just as important as what got them there. I’m talking about moon rocks, guys. And I got to go visit NASA’s lunar sample vault to...
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Do Other Planets Have Seasons Too?
Earth has seasons, but what about the rest of the planets in the solar system? Let’s take a tour from Mercury to Pluto and see what seasons would be like on all our planetary neighbors. Bring a sweater!
PBS
Is Pluto a Planet?
You know what a planet is, right? A big round thing that orbits a star. Uh, not so fast. The surprisingly vicious debate over the planetary status of Pluto has given us a fascinating glimpse into what a scientific definition really is....
PBS
No Dark Matter = Proof of Dark Matter?
We’ve been failing to detect dark matter for decades. Finally, the latest failure to detect dark matter may have actually proved its existence. One of these is true: either most of the matter in the universe is invisible and formed of...