Friday, March 10, 2023

Earth Science: The Bundles (with Environmental Science)

[Updated April 2023]

Once upon a time, I arranged six Earth science-based bundles filled with question sets for documentaries from NOVA, National Geographic, BBC, PBS, and The Universe. Since then, I've added many, many new titles. So I've updated those bundles with the new titles.

























For maximum flexibility, get them all: A Megabundle of Science: EARTH · ENVIRONMENTAL · ASTRONOMY at TPT. It's updated so frequently, you'll need to click the link to see how many resources currently in the bundle. It's more than 55!

When teaching the topics listed below, take a look at these bundles. You might find something you'll like.

EARTH REVEALED: GROUNDWATER
Approximately three-quarters of Earth's surface is covered by water. But most fresh water comes from underground. Topics of this program include aquifers, rock porosity and permeability, artesian wells, the water table, cave formation, sinkholes, and how groundwater may become contaminated.

EARTH REVEALED: RUNNING WATER I - Rivers, Erosion and Deposition
Rivers are the most common land feature on Earth and play a vital role in the sculpting of land. This program shows landscapes formed by rivers, the various types of rivers, the basic parts of a river, and how characteristics of rivers—their slope, channel, and discharge—erode and build the surrounding terrain. Aspects of flooding are also discussed.

EARTH REVEALED: RUNNING WATER II - Landscape Evolution 
The Colorado River is a powerful geologic agent—powerful enough to have carved the Grand Canyon. This program focuses on how such carving takes place over time, looking at erosion and deposition processes as they relate to river characteristics and type of rock. The evolution of rivers is covered, along with efforts to prevent harmful consequences to humans.

HOW THE EARTH CHANGED HISTORY: WATER | Water World
This time Iain Stewart explores our complex relationship with water. Visiting spectacular locations in Iceland, the Middle East and India, Iain shows how control over water has been central to human existence. He takes a precarious flight in a motorized paraglider to experience the cycle of freshwater that we depend on, discovers how villagers in the foothills of the Himalayas have built a living bridge to cope with the monsoon, and visits Egypt to reveal the secret of the pharaohs' success. Throughout history, success has depended on our ability to adapt to and control constantly shifting sources of water.

THE HABITABLE PLANET: OCEANS
This is a story of a surprising aspect of El Niño and of the relatively recent discovery of Prochlorococcus.  Oceans cover three-quarters of the Earth's surface, but many parts of the deep oceans have yet to be explored. Learn about the large-scale ocean circulation patterns that help to regulate temperatures and weather patterns on land, and the microscopic marine organisms that form the base of marine food webs. Ocean systems operate on a range of scales, from massive systems such as El Niño that affects weather across the globe to tiny photosynthetic organisms near the ocean surface that take in large amounts of carbon dioxide. This program looks at how ocean systems regulate themselves and thus help maintain the planet's habitability.

THE HABITABLE PLANET: WATER RESOURCES
Earth's water resources, including rivers, lakes, oceans, and underground aquifers, are under stress in many regions. Humans need water for drinking, sanitation, agriculture, and industry; and contaminated water can spread illnesses and disease vectors, so clean water is both an environmental and a public health issue. In this unit, learn how water is distributed around the globe; how it cycles among the oceans, atmosphere, and land; and how human activities are affecting our finite supply of usable water. While essential to the lives of humans and animals, fresh water only accounts for six percent of the world's water supply. Scientists in Florida's Everglades and the water challenged Southwest consider the optimum use of existing sources of fresh water for both humans and ecosystems.

EARTH UNDER WATER
Miami, New Orleans and New York City completely under water. It's a very real possibility if sea levels continue to rise. In Earth Under Water we'll see these events unfold as leading experts forecast how mankind will be impacted if global warming continues. They'll break down the science behind these predictions and explore ways humanity could adapt, including engineering vast dams near San Francisco, or building floating cities outside of New York.

OUR ATMOSPHERE

In the empty blackness of space, surrounded by hostile planets and freezing vacuum, planet Earth is an oasis of life. And all because of our protective cocoon of gas. This blanket of air shapes everything we see on Earth. It protects, insulates, and sustains us. It carries water around the globe and shields us from cosmic impacts and killer radiation. It’s time to uncover the invisible wonder that is our atmosphere.


HOW THE EARTH CHANGED HISTORY: WIND | The Skies Above

Iain Stewart sets sail on one of the fastest racing boats ever built to explore the story of our turbulent relationship with the wind. Traveling to iconic locations including the Sahara desert, the coast of west Africa and the South Pacific, Iain discovers how people have exploited the power of the wind for thousands of years.


THE HABITABLE PLANET: ATMOSPHERE

The atmosphere is what makes the Earth habitable. Heat-trapping gases allow ecosystems to flourish. While the NOAA Global Monitoring Project documents the fluctuations in greenhouse gases worldwide, MIT's Kerry Emanuel looks at the role of hurricanes in regulating global climate.


WEATHER PREDICTIONS

A study of the discoveries, inventions, and technological advances that have helped us understand and predict weather accurately. From simple observations made by early humans, to early instruments such as thermometers and barometers, to Doppler radar and satellite imaging, we’ll see how man has tried to harness weather.


WILD WEATHER

Wild Weather introduces a global group of experts who risk their lives to demonstrate the power of wind, water and temperature, taking these simple “ingredients” and transforming them into something spectacular and powerful for everyone to understand.


ONE STRANGE ROCK: GASP

Astronaut Chris Hadfield reveals the unlikely and unexpectedly interconnected systems that allow life on our planet to breathe. Shooting locations include Ethiopia, Brazil, Norway, Peru, Thailand, and the International Space Station. The people involved in the story speak in their native languages. Subtitles appear, but there are no voice-overs. The authenticity is powerful. One Strange Rock is hosted by Will Smith and astronauts Chris Hadfield, Nicole Stott, Jeffrey Hoffman, Mae Jemison, Leland Melvin, Mike Massimino, Jerry Linenger, and Peggy Whitson. 


THE HABITABLE PLANET: ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION

Many forms of atmospheric pollution affect human health and the environment at levels from local to global. These contaminants are emitted from diverse sources, and some of them react together to form new compounds in the air. Industrialized nations have made important progress toward controlling some pollutants in recent decades, but air quality is much worse in many developing countries, and global circulation patterns can transport some types of pollution rapidly around the world. In this unit, discover the basic chemistry of atmospheric pollution and learn which human activities have the greatest impacts on air quality. Once released, air pollutants react chemically with each other under solar radiation to become even more dangerous secondary pollutants. A company in the Northeast U.S. tracks the emission of pollutants at street level, while an international long-term study follows plumes of pollution from Mexico City across the continent and beyond

COSMOS - THE CLEAN ROOM

To determine the true age of the Earth, geochemist Clair Patterson developed the uranium-lead dating method to make an unprecedented discovery - calculating Earth's age of 4.5 billion years. But Patterson's groundbreaking discoveries were just beginning. Patterson made it his mission to draw public attention to the detrimental effects of lead in the environment and dedicated his career to fighting against the petroleum and chemical industry, eventually achieving public health's biggest victory of the 20th century.


BEFORE THE FLOOD [61 questions]

A look at how climate change affects our environment and what society can do to prevent the demise of endangered species, ecosystems and native communities across the planet. Using his celebrity status to draw attention to the problem of global warming, one of the most important and pressing issues of our time, actor and United Nations Messenger of Peace, Leonardo DiCaprio, travels the globe to witness firsthand the effects of an impending environmental disaster. By visiting ancient melting glaciers and leveled Indonesian tropical forests, DiCaprio unearths an urgent situation and the world's dependence on fossil fuels, going as far as to visit President Obama himself for an in-depth interview. But, can this crusade inspire the climate-change deniers? 

HOW THE EARTH CHANGED HISTORY - HUMAN PLANET | The Human Era (34 questions]

Professor Iain Stewart explores the most recently established force - humans. It's easy to think of the human impact on the planet as a negative one, but as Iain discovers, this isn't always the case. It is clear that humans have unprecedented control over many of the planet's geological cycles. The question is, how will the human race use this power?


THE HABITABLE PLANET - EARTH’S CHANGING CLIMATE (26 questions)

Earth's climate is a sensitive system that is subject to dramatic shifts over varying time scales. Today human activities are altering the climate system by increasing concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which raises global temperatures. In this unit, examine the science behind global climate change and explore its potential impacts on natural ecosystems and human societies. Tropical glaciers are the world's thermometers; their melting is a signal that human activities are warming the planet. A California project tries to predict whether natural ecosystems will be able to absorb enough additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the next 50 years to mitigate the full impact of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.


EARTH REVEALED - LIVING WITH EARTH PART II: PRESERVING THE LEGACY (25 questions)

Since the nineteenth century, humans have turned to the Earth for energy sources to fuel their industry. This program discusses where oil comes from, how it is extracted, and how it is converted into energy. The effects of oil drilling and the burning of fossil fuels are also addressed, and the potential of alternative energy sources is considered.


THE HABITABLE PLANET - LOOKING FORWARD: OUR GLOBAL EXPERIMENT (24 questions)

Emerging technologies offer potential solutions to environmental problems. Over the long-term, human ingenuity may ensure the survival not only of our own species but of the complex ecosystems that enhance the quality of human life. In this unit, examine the wide range of efforts now underway to mitigate the worst effects of man-made environmental change, looking toward those that will have a positive impact on the future of our habitable planet. Earth's essential systems are being stressed in many ways. There are many tipping points in the environment, beyond which there could be serious consequences. Will human ingenuity, resiliency, and cooperation save us from the worst outcomes of our global experiment?


NOVA - MEGASTORM AFTERMATH [50 questions]

In October 2012, superstorm Sandy cut a path of devastation across the Caribbean and the East Coast, killing hundreds and doing tens of billions of dollars in damage. Now, one year after Sandy’s deadly strike, NOVA follows up on its 2012 film “Inside the Megastorm” with a fresh investigation of the critical questions raised by this historic storm.


NOVA - ARCTIC SINKHOLES (52 questions]

Colossal explosions shake a remote corner of the Siberian tundra, leaving behind massive craters. In Alaska, a huge lake erupts with bubbles of inflammable gas. Scientists are discovering that these mystifying phenomena add up to a ticking time bomb, as long-frozen permafrost melts and releases vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. What are the implications of these dramatic developments in the Arctic? Scientists and local communities alike are struggling to grasp the scale of the methane threat and what it means for our climate future.


COMING OF AGE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE (25 questions)

What kind of world can a child born in 2020 expect to grow up in? And when did our slide into planet-wide environmental destruction begin? The possible world that awaits our baby girl into her 20s: one darkened by our refusal to face the real and mounting challenges we face but concluding with a message of hope. 

NOVA: WEATHERING THE FUTURE
It’s hard not to notice: our weather is changing. From longer, hotter heat waves, to more intense rainstorms, to megafires and multi-year droughts, the U.S. is experiencing the full range of impacts from a changing global climate. At the same time, many on the front lines are fighting back—innovating solutions, marshaling ancient wisdom, and developing visionary ideas. The lessons they're learning today can help all of us adapt in the years ahead, as the planet gets warmer and our weather gets more extreme.

NOVA: CHASING CARBON ZERO 
The U.S. recently set an ambitious climate change goal: zero carbon emissions by 2050. And to achieve that, slash emissions in half by 2030. Is it possible? And what kind of technology would it take? Meet scientists and engineers who are convinced we can achieve carbon zero in time to avoid the biggest impacts of climate change.

COSMOS - THE WORLD SET FREE

Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses our nearest neighboring planet Venus and its climate, the climate change on Earth and if it is caused by humans. Tyson discusses our nearest neighboring planet Venus and its climate, the climate change on Earth and if it is caused by humans.

NAKED SCIENCE: COLLIDING CONTINENTS

The history and a projection of the future of the Earth's land masses caused by continental drift is explained by the theory of plate tectonics.


HOW THE EARTH CHANGED HISTORY: DEEP EARTH | Beneath the Crust

In this first episode, Iain Stewart explores the relationship between the deep Earth and the development of human civilization. He visits an extraordinary crystal cave in Mexico, drops down a hole in the Iranian desert and crawls through 7,000-year-old tunnels in Israel. His exploration reveals that throughout history, our ancestors were strangely drawn to fault lines, areas which connect the surface with the deep interior of the planet. These fault lines gave access to important resources, but also brought with them great danger.


EARTH REVEALED: THE BIRTH OF A THEORY

In the 1960s, earth scientists developed the theory of plate tectonics. This program traces the development of plate tectonics, beginning with the contributions and methods of geologist Alfred Wegener. Sea-floor spreading, continental drift, paleomagnetism, and the primordial supercontinent Pangaea are some of the topics covered.


EARTH REVEALED: PLATE DYNAMICS

This program examines the movement and interaction of tectonic plates, which account for a vast array of geologic formations and phenomena—from California's San Andreas Fault to the Rift Valley of eastern Africa. The program covers convergent boundaries, subduction, hotspots, and the debate over what drives plate motion.


EARTH REVEALED: VOLCANISM

Volcanoes provide clues about what is going on inside Earth. Animations illustrate volcanic processes and how plate boundaries are related to volcanism. The program also surveys the various types of eruptions, craters, cones and vents, lava domes, magma, and volcanic rock. The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens serves as one example.


NOVA: DEADLIEST VOLCANOES

Millions of people around the world live in the shadow of active volcanoes. Under constant threat of massive volcanic eruptions, their homes and their lives are daily at risk from these sleeping giants. From Japan's Mount Fuji to the "Sleeping Giant" submerged beneath Naples to the Yellowstone "supervolcano" in the United States, we will travel with scientists from around the world who are at work on these sites, attempting to discover how likely these volcanoes are to erupt, when it might happen, and exactly how deadly they could prove to be.


EARTH REVEALED: EARTHQUAKES

Showing actual footage of earthquakes and their aftermath, this program discusses the forces that fuel these massive events. Faults, waves, and the transfer of energy from the epicenter are explained, and histories of the seismograph and Richter scale are presented. The program also describes devices being developed to study—and eventually predict—earthquakes.


NOVA: DEADLIEST EARTHQUAKES

In 2010, epic earthquakes all over the planet delivered one of the worst annual death tolls ever recorded. The deadliest strike was in Haiti, where a quake southwest of Port-au-Prince killed more than 200,000. In exclusive coverage, a NOVA camera crew follows a team of U.S. geologists as they enter Haiti in the immediate aftermath, hunting for crucial evidence that will help them determine what happened underground and what the risks are of a new killer quake. Barely a month later, Chile was struck by a quake 100 times more powerful, unleashing a tsunami that put the entire Pacific coast on high alert. In a town devastated by the rushing wave, NOVA follows a team of geologists as they battle aftershocks to take measurements. Could their work, and the work of geologists at earthquake hot-spots, lead to a breakthrough in predicting quakes?


EARTH REVEALED: Living With Earth, Part I - Loma Prieta

Scenes of San Francisco before the Loma Prieta earthquake introduce this program addressing how humans are learning to cope with earthquakes. Various groups and agencies are studying the San Andreas Fault and the damage caused along its path to better understand how earthquakes ravage the land. Methods of studying earthquakes are reviewed.

NOVA: SECRETS OF THE SUN
Now, with the help of new spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes, scientists are seeing the Sun as they never have before and even re-creating what happens at the very center of the Sun. Their work will help us understand aspects of the sun that have puzzled scientists for decades. Secrets of the Sun reveals a bright new dawn in our understanding of our nearest star, one that might help keep our planet from going dark.

NOVA: THE PLANETS - INNER WORLDS
The four planets closest to the sun, called the rocky planets, were born from the same material in the same era. But they couldn’t be more different: Tiny Mercury is the runt of the litter, almost like a moon. Venus is devilishly hot, and Mars is a frozen desert world. Only on Earth do we find the unique conditions for life as we know it. But why only here? Were Earth's neighbors always so extreme? And is there somewhere else in the solar system life might flourish?

NOVA: THE PLANETS - MARS 
The Red Planet was once a vibrant blue water-world, home to raging rivers, active volcanoes, and even an ocean. But as the young planet’s core cooled, its magnetic field and protective atmosphere faded, eventually exposing it to the wrath of the sun. With its volcanoes extinguished and its water lost to space, Mars became the frozen desert planet we know today. But if it once had many of the ingredients necessary to form life, how far along might that process have gotten?

NOVA: THE PLANETS - JUPITER
Jupiter is not just the oldest planet orbiting the sun—it’s also the largest. So when the young gas giant went on a rampage through the inner solar system, it shaped the fate of everything in its path. Speeding towards the Sun, Jupiter’s massive gravitational force hurled debris into interstellar space, stunting the growth of would-be planets. Earth might have been doomed had Saturn not pulled Jupiter back. Today, Jupiter resides in the outer solar system, where its gravity bends the paths of asteroids and stokes volcanic activity on its moon Io. But it could one day wreak havoc again.

NOVA: THE PLANETS - SATURN
Over the past 40 years, a handful of space probes has given us glimpses of Saturn. But NASA’s Cassini, which explored the gas giant’s realm for 13 years, delivered the most breathtaking new insights. NOVA takes you inside Cassini’s epic journey as it makes stunning discoveries: Saturn’s rings are younger than the dinosaurs and may be remnants of an ice moon. And geysers erupting ice and gas on the moon Enceladus show that it could have all the ingredients for life. But to protect it, the Cassini mission team makes a bittersweet decision.

NOVA: THE PLANETS - THE ICE WORLDS
Over a billion miles from the sun, beyond the rocky inner planets and the gas giants, lie the ice words—Uranus and Neptune. NOVA takes you inside the missions that rewrote the story of the outer solar system: NASA’s Voyager 1 & 2 capture Neptune’s supersonic winds, and rings around a tipped-over Uranus. And when New Horizons flies by Pluto in 2015, it reveals jagged ice mountains and an underground ocean.

NOVA: METEOR STRIKE
Scientists hunt for debris from the 7,000-ton asteroid that crashed in Russia, searching for clues to its origin and makeup; a review of past explosions, from Tunguska to the asteroid that extinguished the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

NOVA: FINDING LIFE BEYOND EARTH Part 1: ARE WE ALONE?
Scientists are on the verge of answering one of the greatest questions in history: Are we alone? Finding Life Beyond Earth immerses audiences in the sights and sounds of alien worlds, while top astrobiologists explain how these places are changing how we think about the potential for life in our solar system. We used to think our neighboring planets and moons were fairly boring—mostly cold, dead rocks where life could never take hold. Today, however, the solar system looks wilder than we ever imagined. Powerful telescopes and unmanned space missions have revealed a wide range of dynamic environments—atmospheres thick with organic molecules, active volcanoes, and vast saltwater oceans. This ongoing revolution is forcing scientists to expand their ideas about what kinds of worlds could support life.

NOVA: FINDING LIFE BEYOND EARTH Part 2: MOONS AND BEYOND
Scientists are on the verge of answering one of the greatest questions in history: Are we alone? Finding Life Beyond Earth immerses audiences in the sights and sounds of alien worlds, while top astrobiologists explain how these places are changing how we think about the potential for life in our solar system. We used to think our neighboring planets and moons were fairly boring—mostly cold, dead rocks where life could never take hold. Today, however, the solar system looks wilder than we ever imagined. Powerful telescopes and unmanned space missions have revealed a wide range of dynamic environments—atmospheres thick with organic molecules, active volcanoes, and vast saltwater oceans. This ongoing revolution is forcing scientists to expand their ideas about what kinds of worlds could support life.

STAR CHASERS OF SENEGAL
A NASA spacecraft named Lucy blasts off from Cape Canaveral on a mission to the Trojans, a group of asteroids over 400 million miles from Earth thought to hold important clues about the origins of our solar system. Just hours before, in Senegal, West Africa, a team of scientists sets out to capture extraordinarily precise observations vital to the success of the Lucy mission–crucial data needed to help NASA navigate Lucy to its asteroid targets across millions of miles of space. The team’s leader, Senegalese astronomer Maram Kaire, takes viewers on a journey to investigate his nation’s rich and deep history of astronomy, reaching back thousands of years–and the promising future ahead.

PRIME: GOOD NIGHT OPPY
This feature film documentary charts the remarkable true story of Opportunity, a NASA exploration rover that was sent to Mars for a 90-day mission but ended up surviving for 15 years. 

LIFE AND DEATH OF A STAR

Ignited by the power of the atom, burning with light, heat and wrath, stars are anything but peaceful. They collide, devour each other, and explode in enormous supernovas.


AGE OF STARS

The sun is our life-giving source of light, heat, and energy, and new discoveries are unraveling its epic history. Join NOVA on a spectacular voyage to discover the sun’s place in a grand cycle of birth, death and renewal that makes this the age of stars. Witness how stars of every size and color came to populate our universe; how stars stage a dramatic exit when they explode as supernovae, which can outshine an entire galaxy; and how, billions of years in the future, the age of stars will lead ultimately to an age of darkness.


MILKY WAY

Straddling the night sky, the Milky Way reminds us of our place in the galaxy we call home. But what shaped this giant spiral of stars and what will be its destiny? NOVA travels back in time to unlock the turbulent story of our cosmic neighborhood, from its birth in a whirling disk of clouds and dust to colossal collisions with other galaxies. Finally, peer into the future to watch the Milky Way’s ultimate fate as it collides with the Andromeda galaxy, over 4 billion years from now. 


INVISIBLE UNIVERSE REVEALED

Twenty-five years ago, NASA launched one of the most ambitious experiments in the history of astronomy: the Hubble Space Telescope. In honor of Hubble's landmark anniversary, NOVA tells the remarkable story of the telescope that forever changed our understanding of the cosmos. But Hubble's early days nearly doomed it to failure: a one-millimeter engineering blunder had turned the billion-dollar telescope into an object of ridicule. It fell to five heroic astronauts in a daring mission to return Hubble to the cutting edge of science. This single telescope has helped astronomers pinpoint the age of the universe, revealed the birthplace of stars and planets, advanced our understanding of dark energy and cosmic expansion, and uncovered black holes lurking at the heart of galaxies. Join NOVA for the story of this magnificent machine and its astonishing discoveries.


ALIEN PLANETS REVEALED

From PBS - It's a golden age for planet hunters: recently, they've discovered more than 750 planets orbiting stars beyond our sun. Some of them, like a planet called Kepler-22b, might even be able to harbor life. What would that life look like? Combining startling animation with input from expert astrobiologists, Alien Planets Revealed takes viewers on a journey of the imagination as we "build" aliens from the ground up.


ALIEN WORLDS

It’s an age-old question: are we alone? Or do other lifeforms and intelligences thrive on worlds far beyond our own? Ultra-sensitive telescopes and dogged detective work are transforming alien planet-hunting from science fiction into hard fact. Join NOVA on a visit to exotic worlds orbiting distant suns, from puffy planets with the density of Styrofoam to thousand-degree, broiling gas giants. Most tantalizing of all are the Super-Earths in the “Goldilocks zone,” just the right distance from their sun to support life, and with one of them signaling life’s essential ingredient, water, in its atmosphere. Are we on the brink of answering that haunting question?


ALIEN GALAXIES

To know our place in the universe take a look far, far away to the realm of Alien Galaxies. Our galaxy is one of hundreds of billions in the universe. The Milky Way consists of more than a billion stars, our sun being only one of them. Take a view of the universe through the Hubble Space telescope and go back almost all the way to the Big Bang. Cutting-edge computer graphics are used to bring the universe down to earth to show what life would be like on other planets, and to imagine what life forms might evolve in alien atmospheres.


BLACK HOLES

Take a seat on the ultimate thrill ride to explore nature’s strangest and most powerful objects. Black holes can reshape entire galaxies, warp the fabric of space and time, and may even be the key to unlocking the ultimate nature of reality. A new generation of high-energy telescopes is bringing these invisible voids to light, showing that “supermassives” millions or billions of times larger than our sun lurk at the center of nearly every galaxy, including our own. But what happens if you stray too close to one? And what lies beyond the black hole’s abyss? If nothing can ever escape it, is that the end of the story? Or could they be a portal to another dimension—or another universe, full of black holes?


BIG BANG

The Big Bang is when many think the universe started and time itself began. But what clues can we discover about this ultimate genesis of everything? And can we ever know what existed before the Universe’s birthday? With stunning animation based on space telescope images, NOVA explores infant galaxies filled with violent blue stars that formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Before that—before the coming of visible light itself—stretch the “cosmic Dark Ages.” But scientists haven’t stopped there; instead, they’ve come up with an incredible theory for what happened billionths of a billionth of a second from the universe’s birth. If they’re right, we’re on the brink of understanding more than we could ever have hoped about our cosmic origins.


ULTIMATE SPACE TELESCOPE

How did NASA engineers build and launch the most ambitious telescope of all time? Follow the dramatic story of the James Webb Space Telescope—the most complex machine ever launched into space. If it works, scientists believe that this new eye on the universe will peer deeper back in time and space than ever before to the birth of galaxies, and may even be able to “sniff” the atmospheres of exoplanets as we search for signs of life beyond Earth. But getting it to work is no easy task. The telescope is far bigger than its predecessor, the famous Hubble Space Telescope, and it needs to make its observations a million miles away from Earth—so there will be no chance to go out and fix it. That means there’s no room for error; the most ambitious telescope ever built needs to work perfectly. Meet the engineers making it happen and join them on their high stakes journey to uncover new secrets of the universe.


NEW EYE ON THE UNIVERSE

In July 2022, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope released its first images, looking further back in time than ever before to show our universe in stunningly beautiful detail. But that was just the beginning: With tons of new data and spectacular images flooding in, Webb is allowing scientists to peer deep in time to try to answer some of astronomy’s biggest questions. When–and how–did the first stars and galaxies form? And can we see the fingerprints of life in the atmospheres of distant worlds–or even within our own solar system?



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