The core of the star crushes inward supercharging its magnetism. ibid.
How life begins … Did our ancestors arrive from space or did they arise up out of the oceans of the Earth? ibid.
We thought we knew our solar system … An unseen ninth planet may lurk far beyond the outer planets and it could be huge. Five thousand times more massive than Pluto and ten times the mass of the Earth. If Planet 9 really does exist, what will it be like? How the Universe Works s5e2: Mystery of Planet 9
‘The evidence is remarkable.’ ibid. Lawrence Krauss
Billions of kilometres from the Sun, it’s lit by little more than the glimmer from distance stars and the red flow of intense geological activity on its surface. ibid.
Two black holes circle each other spiralling inwards as their immense gravity pulls them ever closer towards their demise. When they finally collide it’s one of the most powerful events since the Big Bang … How did supermassive black holes grow so large? How the Universe Works s5e3: Black Holes: The Secret Origin
The black hole in galaxy NG4889 weighs twenty-one billion solar masses. There could be black holes that are even bigger. ibid.
With no food available the black hole stops growing. ibid.
It doesn’t make sense: Physics tells us no black hole could swallow enough stuff to get that big that quickly … Perhaps they were born supermassive. ibid.
Pluto: for such a long time a mystery but then these astounding and revealing images rocked science. Ice volcanoes, fast-flowing glaciers and mountain ranges as big as the Rockies … In 2015 Pluto was finally revealed to the world. But does its greatest secret lie deep below the surface? How the Universe Works s5e4: Secret History of Pluto
The ice basin appeared to be boiling … A vast heart-shaped icy plain … Steady flow of fresh nitrogen … Where is the heat coming from? ibid.
Monsters: In the last decade astronomers have uncovered a sinister side to our universe: killer stars, stars that can annihilate on a cosmic scale. Solar systems torn to shreds. Living worlds vaporized in an instant. How the Universe Works s5e5: Stars That Kill
Stars can also annihilate each other … In 2012 the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a new breed of stars sucking the very life from their neighbours. ibid.
The universe is far more violent and much scarier than anything you can possibly imagine. You’d scream in fear but in space no-one can hear you scream. It’s a place where super-dense neutron stars collide, where new-born planets smash each other to pieces, and where supermassive black holes blast out deadly cosmic rays. This is the ultimate guide to the worst places in the universe. How the Universe Works s5e6: The Universe’s Deadliest
Even if a supernova happened thirty light years from us – that’s more than 150 trillion kilometres – we’d be in trouble. The shockwave would probably destroy our atmosphere leading to mass extinctions. ibid.
Even after it’s gone supernova, it would be a place best to avoid. Because after it dies what’s left is one of the most extreme objects in the universe – a neutron star. Trillions and trillions of tons of matter are compressed into a sphere that’s just tens of kilometres in diameter. Because the neutron star is so dense it generates an intense gravitational field. ibid.
But what about two neutron stars colliding? Creating one of the strangest and most lethal particles in the universe … releasing a huge surge of energy that was emitted across space … It’s possible that neutron star collisions release something that is incredibly weird – a new theoretical particle called a Strangelet. ibid.
Supermassive black holes act like supercharged particle accelerators. They superheat and blast particles in jets from the poles. These accelerated particles are cosmic rays. ibid.
‘There is a giant area that’s colder and emptier than it possibly could be’ … One of these super-voids is 1.8 billion light years across making it the largest individual structure ever identified by humanity. ibid. Michelle Thaller
Colossal impacts, ferocious climate change and total atmospheric collapse turned a paradise into hell. This wasn’t Earth, this was Mars. How the Universe Works s5e7: Life and Death on the Red Planet
There’s something else out there, something strange: invisible dark matter also fills our universe and it could be the key to the existence of everything. How the Universe Works s5e8: The Dark Matter Enigma
Most scientists believe dark matter is a type of elementary particle and it lurks in vast networks of clouds or networks that link the two trillion galaxies that form our universe. ibid.
The universe we see today: 84% dark matter and just 16% ordinary matter. ibid.
The stars of the galaxy appear to be fixed almost as if they’re attached to the giant spinning wheel. ibid.
We know dark matter is out there … The primary candidate is a theoretical particle known as a WIMP. ibid.
For 25 years astronomers have been searching the night sky looking for a Holy Grail, a planet like our own. They’ve found thousands of others worlds but most are nothing like they expected. And many are truly bizarre. Planets without stars, worlds made from diamond, and perhaps weird planets with one side constantly staring at their suns. Could any of these worlds be like Earth, have life like Earth, or is there no place like home? How the Universe Works s5e9: Strangest Alien Worlds
If advanced alien civilisations are out there, the planets of Red Dwarf stars could be the ideal place to find them. ibid.
Cosmologists are baffling over the universe’s greatest enigma: black holes. We’ve never seen them, it’s near impossible to study them, and their existence challenges everything we think we know about space. Black holes are at the very heart of cosmology yet some scientists question if they are even real. How the Universe Works s6e1: Are Black Holes Real? Discovery 2018
Cosmologists are listening for proof in the hidden world of gravitational waves. ibid.
What if black holes have hair? … These hairy black holes could solve the information paradox. ibid.
Quantum mechanics is at the heart of the problem. ibid.
All across our solar system scientists are discovering thrilling new worlds. Dwarf planets – they may be small but their full of riddles, oceans of subterranean water, ice volcanoes and vanishing mountains. Dwarf planets defy many of the rules we thought governed our solar system. How the Universe Works s6e2: Strange Lives of Dwarf Planets
Most of the dwarf planets discovered lie far out in the solar system beyond the orbit of Neptune. ibid.
Across the universe there are stellar systems totally different from our own containing two stars instead of one. Our sun isn’t so typical after all. These are binary stars and they created some of the most lethal places in the universe. How the Universe Works s6e3: Twin Suns: The Alien Mysteries
Imagine living in the light of two suns. ibid.
We know of hundreds of millisecond pulsars scattered across the cosmos … Some of them are alone: what’s happened to their sibling? ibid.
Could two stars create a habitable oasis on alien worlds? ibid.
Our solar system is home to giants. The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn seem to dominate. But two ice giants – Neptune and Uranus – determine the effect of the rest … The fate of the ice giants are entwined with our own. How the Universe Works s6e4: Rise of the Ice Giants
Consisting of these different forms of ice meant that they grew dense. ibid.
Mysterious lights shine out from the edge of space brighter than a trillion suns. Energy so powerful they could incinerate planets and rip stars to pieces. They can destroy galaxies but may also be the key to their survival. These celestial powerhouses are called quasars. How the Universe Works s6e5: The Quasar Enigma
A quasar is the ultra-bright core of an extremely distant galaxy. ibid.
Stars 25 times more massive than our sun … suffer a catastrophic collapse … giving birth to a black hole … Only supermassive black holes are able to provide the energy to power quasars. Yet quasars can outshine their entire galaxies. ibid.
Quasars with jets are a very rare species as only 10% have them and no-one really knows why. ibid.
The fate of our galaxy hangs in the balance. The Milky Way is dying. And we don’t know why. The hunt is on to find the cause. It’s a cosmic Why investigation. And every possible reason is under suspicion and will be scrutinised. What is killing the Milky Way? How the Universe Works s6e6: Death of the Milky Way
Repeated dwarf-galaxy collisions could have radically altered the shape of the Milky Way itself … Are dwarf galaxies killing the Milky Way? ibid.
The Milky Way is eating itself to death. ibid.