SciShow Space

2022x1
The Night Sky in Infrared
Episode overview

04, 2022

James Webb wouldn’t be equipped to look in the infrared if not for the previous missions that have allowed us to see the universe in wavelengths that the human eye can’t see!

2022x2
Keeping the Fungus Among Us in Space
Episode overview

07, 2022

Developing new methods for survival in space is a constant and ever-evolving process, and a well known Earthly organism has the potential for multiple applications within space’s unforgiving environment!

2022x3
Can Moon Colonies Get Oxygen From the...Moon?
Episode overview

11, 2022

As we look towards longer missions to the Moon, the shear amount of resources needed to survive becomes a much bigger question. Without space semi-trucks to haul life-giving resources to .. show full overview

2022x4
Why Don't Comets Ever Have a Green Tail?
Episode overview

25, 2022

There’s no question that comets have been regarded as some of the most beautiful things in the night sky for thousands of years. But why are their heads often green but never their tails?

2022x5
What's Next for the James Webb Space Telescope
Episode overview

28, 2022

It finally happened! The James Webb Space Telescope is on its way to capturing never-before-seen images of the universe! But now that it’s airborne and unfurled, what are its next steps before it can deliver the goods?

2022x6
How 19th Century Lighthouses Power Advanced Space Drives
Episode overview

01, 2022

The technology we use for space exploration gets more advanced all the time, but some of our most ambitious programs actually rely on optics invented in the 19th century for lighthouses.

2022x7
The Sweetest Rocks in Space
Episode overview

07, 2022

Sugars aren’t just for munching and crunching, they also make up our genetic code! So what does it mean to find sugars INSIDE meteorites?

2022x8
The Massive Chunk of Metal Hiding in the Moon
Episode overview

11, 2022

The moon's South Pole-Aitken basin is the largest known crater in existence, and there's something big hidden underneath.

2022x9
Space Headwinds Might Help Us Find Dark Matter
Episode overview

15, 2022

Some scientists are hoping to use our motion through the galaxy to help detect some of the most elusive particles of all: dark matter.

2022x10
Is the Size of Neutron Stars A Lie, Or Only A FRIB?
Episode overview

18, 2022

Have we been wrong about how big neutron stars are this whole time?

2022x11
The Oldest Crater from a Meteorite…Isn’t a Crater after All?
Episode overview

22, 2022

There's one crater that may be older than any that we know of. Except there's a snag, it might not actually be a crater at all.

2022x12
Pioneer 10: Our First View into Outer Planets
Episode overview

01, 2022

In the 1970's, no vehicle had gone beyond the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, that is until Pioneer 10.

2022x13
Two Decades Later, We Know Why the Sun Is a Lava Lamp
Episode overview

04, 2022

In 1999, scientists discovered something that took over 20 years to solve. Why do solar flares move like a lava lamp?

2022x14
Helping Build the Internet: Valerie Thomas | Great Minds
Episode overview

08, 2022

Despite computers barely being a thing when she was born, Valerie Thomas knew that she was cut out for the tech world, pushed until she got there, and contributed to some hugely important technologies that many of us could not live without.

2022x15
What’s Hiding Inside The Crab Nebula?
Episode overview

11, 2022

The Crab Nebula is one of the most studied things in the sky, but it took glimpses through various wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum to get a full picture of what’s hiding inside!

2022x16
Could Squirrels Be the Key to Long Distance Spaceflight?
Episode overview

15, 2022

Space is hard on the human body, but a certain ground squirrel might have the guts to show us how to last longer in space.

2022x17
From Optics to Spacewalks: Dr. Ellen Ochoa | Great Minds
Episode overview

18, 2022

Dr. Ellen Ochoa is incredible! She published over a dozen papers, co-filed three patents, and was a NASA engineer, all before becoming an astronaut and spending nearly a thousand hours in space.

2022x18
How Space Changes Your Brain
Episode overview

22, 2022

We've been sending people to space since the '60s, and we're just now starting to learn what that does to their brains.

2022x19
What Will Happen to The ISS?
Episode overview

25, 2022

After more than two decades buzzing around above our heads, the life of the ISS will soon be coming to a close. But what does that actually look like? And what does it mean for the future of space experimentation?

2022x20
That’s Not a Black Hole, It’s a Vampire
Episode overview

29, 2022

What was once thought to be a black hole might in fact be a star that feeds on its own kind!

2022x21
What Do You Learn When You Touch the Sun?
Episode overview

05, 2022

Though our Sun is something we can count on to rise and set each day, it also comes with some phenomena that can catch us by surprise: solar winds. To better predict when these winds .. show full overview

2022x22
How to Tilt a Black Hole
Episode overview

12, 2022

It seems the more we learn about black holes, the more there is to find out. In this case, what in the universe could have put one on its side?

2022x23
How to Clean Up After Ourselves in Space
Episode overview

19, 2022

We've launched thousands of spacecraft over the years. And as the space junk around our planet builds up, researchers are working on ways to clean things up using some obvious things, like lasers, and some less obvious ones, like solar sails.

2022x24
Do Black Holes Have Quantum Hair?
Episode overview

22, 2022

We don’t know what happens to stuff when it gets sucked into a black hole, but in the same instance, we don’t know what happens to the black hole. There’s a possibility that sucked up stuff might actually give the black hole “quantum hair”.

2022x25
Can We Grow Plants On the Moon?
Episode overview

26, 2022

Despite how easy it looks in movies, growing plants on other planets is trickier than you might imagine.

2022x26
We’re Talking To Aliens
Episode overview

29, 2022

We’ve done a lot of searching for life in the universe and we need to continue to if we hope to make contact. But not all of our attempts were expected to succeed. That’s where Beacon in the Galaxy comes in.

2022x27
That Time NASA Recycled a Mars Lander
Episode overview

03, 2022

While most spacecraft are designed and built from scratch for one particular mission, the Phoenix Lander was pieced together from previous missions and rose from the ashes...all the way to Mars.

2022x28
This Exoplanet Shows We Might Be Wrong About Planet Formation
Episode overview

10, 2022

Though we’ve been able detect thousands of exoplanets in the last few decades, we’ve now directly imaged an exoplanet that changes our whole perspective on how we think planets like Jupiter form!

2022x29
The Hottest Exoplanets in the Universe
Episode overview

13, 2022

With exoplanets, often we want to know if they are Earth-like and whether they might host life, but we can also learn a lot from planets that are nothing like Earth.

2022x30
How Saturn's Moons Could Help Us Live in Space
Episode overview

17, 2022

As we continue our search for life out in the universe, it's important that we leave no stone, or moon, unturned.

2022x31
A Telescope Bigger Than the Solar System
Episode overview

20, 2022

It turns out if you’d like to take a deeper look into the universe, the universe itself might actually help you do that!

2022x32
Space Medicine: What We Need and What We Have
Episode overview

24, 2022

If we're going to send astronauts out to Mars someday, we'll need to figure out how to send a pharmacy with them.

2022x33
Why These Two Planets SHOULD Be the Same
Episode overview

27, 2022

You'd think that two planets with similar stats, orbits, and parent stars would grow up to be pretty similar, but these twins have atmospheres that beg to differ.

2022x34
Where Are All the Exo-Earths?
Episode overview

31, 2022

Scientists have discovered over 5,000 exoplanets in the last few decades, but where are the Exo-Earths?

2022x35
Mama, Where Do Galaxies Come From?
Episode overview

03, 2022

For most of human history, we didn't know that galaxies were a thing. So over the past century, astronomers have been working to understand how galaxies come to be and how they evolve .. show full overview

2022x36
Detecting Tornadoes Early by Observing Lightning... from Space
Episode overview

07, 2022

It’s handy having a view of Earth from space. This particular view may be one that changes the way we predict weather phenomena.

2022x37
Earth Doesn’t Orbit the Sun
Episode overview

10, 2022

Understanding gravity can sometimes be a bit of a balancing act, much like the fundamental laws of physics and how they inform what it is exactly that Earth orbits.

2022x38
Fun in the Summer Sun… on Saturn
Episode overview

17, 2022

For 13 years, the Cassini probe circled Saturn and sent back fascinating data about the seasons of Saturn as it moved through a 29 Earth year Saturnian year.

2022x39
“Do Fabulous Science”: Jane Rigby | Great Minds
Episode overview

24, 2022

Astronomer Dr. Jane Rigby challenges the limits of the naked eye. Having influenced most famous telescopes that come to mind, her work is defined by breaking boundaries both physical and beyond.

2022x40
Why These Rovers Will Never Go To Mars
Episode overview

28, 2022

It’s nice to think that every rover we land on Mars is totally unique, but isn’t it even nicer to know that they’ve got a twin or even a triplet here on Earth making sure they’re up for the job ahead?

2022x41
The Chinese Mission Finding Water on Mars
Episode overview

05, 2022

Several rovers on Mars's surface are currently in operation, including one you might not have heard of: China’s Zhurong rover. It's already spent over a year on the Martian surface and .. show full overview

2022x42
Eclipses That Don't Eclipse
Episode overview

13, 2022

Here on Earth, we’re used to seeing both lunar and solar eclipses. But further out are eclipses that don’t behave at all the way we expected them to.

2022x43
Special Webb Update: The Webb's First Four (actually 7) Images Explained
Episode overview

14, 2022

The first full-color images from the James Webb Space Telescope are finally here! Let's take a look, talk about what we're seeing, and compare them to the most detailed version of these images we had before.

2022x44
What Keeps Astronauts Up At Night?
Episode overview

19, 2022

Sleep is a crucial activity for our brains to function properly. But when you’re on the ISS, you face a myriad of distractions and obligations that make it difficult to get good shuteye. So how do these astronauts ever get restful sleep?

2022x45
How To X-Ray A Black Hole
Episode overview

26, 2022

Black holes are everywhere, including at the center of our galaxy. But because they’re invisible they’re quite difficult to study. Looking at the disks of material surrounding them, .. show full overview

2022x46
Hayabusa: The Artificial Meteor Launched From An Asteroid
Episode overview

02, 2022

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.

2022x47
How We Get Sick in Space and How to Recover
Episode overview

05, 2022

No one likes being sick, but can you imagine catching a bug while hurling through space? Turns out, this is an issue that many space agencies have worked to study and mitigate.

2022x48
How Distant Stars Let Us See the Solar System Up Close
Episode overview

09, 2022

Occultations may sound spooky, but in actuality they can inform us of some of the most unknown parts of the universe.

2022x48
The Mystery of the Star That Wasn't There
Episode overview

16, 2022

In the 1970s, astronomers discovered a mysterious source of gamma rays that, 50 years later, still hasn’t revealed all of its secrets.

2022x49
The Asteroid That Nearly Swallowed OSIRIS-Rex
Episode overview

23, 2022

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.

2022x50
The Ominous Reason Phobos Has Lines on It
Episode overview

01, 2022

Mars’s moon, Phobos, is striped with grooves all across its surface. But if one theory about where they came from is true, does that mean this moon might be on its way out?

2022x51
Where Did Mercury’s Spots Come From?
Episode overview

06, 2022

The Sun isn’t the only celestial body in the solar system to boast spots of its own. Mercury, too, has its fair share, and they’re worth wondering about.

2022x52
New and Ancient Lessons from Lunar Eclipses
Episode overview

13, 2022

Ancient perceptions of lunar eclipses weren’t as primitive as one might think. Some rigorous math was applied to these cosmic events that shaped our understanding of the solar system.

2022x53
How to Move the Sky
Episode overview

20, 2022

The earth is always moving, and our view of the night sky is slowly but surely changing.

2022x54
Goodbye SOFIA, Thanks for All the Discoveries
Episode overview

27, 2022

SOFIA or The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy is coming to an end, but let's look back on some of the amazing discoveries of this flying telescope.

2022x55
Goodbye, SOFIA, the Telescope That Actually Flew
Episode overview

30, 2022

In 1997, NASA bought a Boeing 747SP for what might be both a super cool and super absurd purpose. Turn it into SOFIA, a flying telescope.

2022x56
The One-Second Success Story of Venera 7
Episode overview

04, 2022

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.

2022x57
How Do You Date a Star?
Episode overview

11, 2022

Figuring out the age of a blinking speck in the sky is a difficult feat, especially if considering how many types of stars there are. This is where a Hertzsprung-Russell meets a gyrochronologist.

2022x58
Why are Astronomers So Bad at Naming Things?
Episode overview

18, 2022