SciShow Space

IMDb TVDB Trailer
  • :
  • : 878
  • : 1
  • YouTube
  • 12
  • Documentary

:

.

2020
2020x1
Future Space News of 2020
Episode overview
2020 is going to be an exciting year for space exploration, if everything goes according to plan. Humans are heading to space in new spacecraft, multiple Mars missions are on the horizon, and scientists are getting a new perspective on our Sun!
2020x2
How to (Maybe) Find Your Own Little Amazing Meteorite
Episode overview
Most of the meteorites that land on this planet are pretty tiny. And enough of them fall to Earth each day that, theoretically, you could find micrometeorite yourself.
2020x3
How Doctors on Earth Stopped a Medical Emergency in Space
Episode overview
There was a medical incident on the ISS which required NASA to treat an astronaut from Earth. And astronomers have discovered what might be some of the universe’s earliest stars.
2020x4
This Little-Known Lab Is Changing the Future of Space
Episode overview
To live on the Moon, we’ll need to do things we’ve never done before and overcome challenges we’ve never faced. Luckily for us, NASA is developing some brand-new technology at Swamp Works.
2020x5
Get Ready for a New Star in the Night Sky!
Episode overview
Astronomers are predicting that two stars are likely to merge and explode, and it may happen soon... on a cosmic timescale. Plus, scientists break up a meteorite and find the oldest solid matter ever discovered on earth.
2020x6
How Levitating Dust Shapes Airless Worlds
Episode overview
Our moon has no atmosphere, but sometimes it has visible bands of light streaking across its sky, and scientists suspect that electrostatic forces could explain this levitating dust!
2020x7
There's Apparently an Asteroid Between Mercury and Venus
Episode overview
Astronomers have found the first asteroid orbiting closer to the Sun than Venus, and recently, some scientists have been looking at Earth, trying to understand the origins of our protective magnetic field.
2020x8
Could Life Survive Without a Star?
Episode overview
There are billions of planets out there that don't orbit stars. The sheer abundance of these planets has led some scientists to wonder if life could emerge without a star.
2020x9
The Legacy of the Spitzer Space Telescope
Episode overview
On January 30, 2020, we had to say goodbye to NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope after more thank 16 years of revolutionizing infrared astronomy. Today, SciShow sends it off and says thank you by taking a look back at it’s incredible legacy.
2020x10
The Old Sailors' Tool That Saved Apollo 13
Episode overview
In the 1700s, sailors used sextants to navigate the seas. Centuries later, these old-timey tools saved the day on not one, but two of the Apollo missions!
2020x11
Astronomers Captured Our Sun in the Highest Resolution Ever
Episode overview
A new telescope, the DKIST, has given us our most direct look at the Sun ever, in the highest resolution yet. And a paper published last week has revealed how “the dunes” auroras may be more than just a new spectacle in the night sky.
2020x12
Why Space Over South America is Deadly for Satellites
Episode overview
There's a region of Earth's atmosphere known as the South Atlantic Anomaly, and it’s one of the most dangerous near-Earth areas of space, both for satellites and humans.
2020x13
How Pluto's Heart Makes Its Atmosphere Spin Backward
Episode overview
Pluto's heart is revealing itself to be a major influence on the dwarf planet’s landscape and atmosphere, and scientists used atom probe tomography (APT) for the first time on lunar soil to study it atom by atom!
2020x14
3 Historic Firsts in Asteroid Exploration
Episode overview
We’ve visited lots of places in our solar system in the last 60 years, but modern technology has made an unlikely candidate the hottest new frontier of solar system exploration: .. show full overview
2020x15
Betelgeuse Isn’t Just Dim: It’s Lopsided
Episode overview
The constellation of Orion has one shoulder marked by a bright red star called Betelgeuse, but over the last year it's dimmed enough to notice with the naked eye! and mission scientists .. show full overview
2020x16
Starquakes Could Be Behind 3 Cosmic Mysteries
Episode overview
We’ve detected seismic activity all around the solar system, from earthquakes to moonquakes, marsquakes to venusquakes. But the most dramatic quakes we know of actually happen on stars!
2020x17
The First Results from NASA's Insight Lander!
Episode overview
We finally have some results from the InSight lander’s measurements on Mars, and the Japanese Space Agency is moving forward with a probe that will explore Mars’s moons.
2020x18
Astronomers Just Discovered the Biggest Explosion Ever
Episode overview
Scientists just discovered the largest explosion ever detected, and it's thanks to the collaborative efforts of scientists from all over the world.
2020x19
How Jupiter's Moons Showed Us the Speed of Light
Episode overview
Light travels through space as fast as anything in the universe possibly can, but before scientists could figure out light’s speed, they had to figure out whether that speed was even finite.
2020x20
How Bad Are Satellite Constellations for Astronomy?
Episode overview
Imagine being excited to use one of the world's most advanced telescopes, only to see bright streaks of light on every picture! This is a problem facing some astronomers as satellites fill up the night sky.
2020x21
Jupiter Is a Jerk… and Also Our Friend
Episode overview
The largest planet in our solar system is no stranger to throwing its weight around, both to our benefit and detriment here on Earth.
2020x22
How Slime Mold Is Tackling Mysteries of Cosmology
Episode overview
We might be able to use slime molds to help predict the shape of matter in the universe, and the Rosetta mission may have figured out why many comets seem to be missing a bunch of nitrogen.
2020x23
How Earth’s Tides Gave Us Life As We Know It
Episode overview
While astronomers are busy searching for life beyond Earth, they’ve also started asking another question: If life seems so difficult to find, then why is our world so full of it? One answer might be overhead right now: the Moon!
2020x24
How to Study String Theory Using X-Rays
Episode overview
Over the last few years astronomers have been doing more and more research based on string theory, and thanks to modern telescopes the results are... less than encouraging.
2020x25
Does Mars Need "The Cloud"?
Episode overview
Earlier this year, scientists pitched a mission to bring "the cloud" to Mars. While this proposal may seem expensive and risky, it's a legitimate idea that could fundamentally change how we plan space missions!
2020x26
Old Voyager Data Has New Secrets About Uranus
Episode overview
Scientists announced a major discovery about Uranus using 34-year-old data from Voyager 2, and the Canadian telescope CHIME has detected 9 new FRB repeaters, helping us learn more about these mysterious signals.
2020x27
What If the Universe Isn't Uniform?
Episode overview
According to the cosmological principle, the universe is more or less the same in all directions. But what happens when we put this to the test?
2020x28
3 Times We Captured Physical Pieces of the Sun
Episode overview
It's tricky to study the particles of our Sun because Earth’s magnetic field deflects them, but scientists have found ways to do it! They're helping us understand things like the Sun’s .. show full overview
2020x29
Could You Get Pregnant in Space?
Episode overview
Researchers are already trying to figure out if people can make space babies. If we need to live in space long-term, will our species be able to reproduce?
2020x30
What We’re Learning from the Brightest Supernova Ever Seen
Episode overview
It’s been a great week for space explosions! Astronomers learned more about the mechanism that causes novas by looking at the nova V906 Carinae, and the brightest supernova ever recorded shed some new light on pulsation pair-instability.
2020x31
The Secret Behind Those Beautiful Hubble Images
Episode overview
Since it launched in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has snapped more than a million images and changed the way we see the universe, literally.
2020x32
3 Ways We Know What the Ancient Solar System Was Like
Episode overview
The New Horizons spacecraft has given us lots of clues about the early days of our solar system, but we don't always have to travel billions of kilometers to peer into our past.
2020x33
How Climate Change Is Creating More Space Junk
Episode overview
You’ve probably heard a lot about how climate change is affecting our planet, but did you know a warming climate also affects objects in space?
2020x34
How Space Tech Is Changing Life on Earth: 2020 Edition
Episode overview
We’ve developed thousands of technologies for space exploration, but luckily for us, sometimes those solutions apply to problems here on the ground, too.
2020x35
Mercury Is So Hot, It’s Making Ice
Episode overview
Scientists first saw patches of ice on Mercury 20 years ago, and that discovery raised a lot of questions: How could ice survive on one of the solar system’s hottest planets, and how did it get there in the first place?
2020x36
Turns Out, the Sun Is... Pretty Chill
Episode overview
Life on Earth depends on the steady nature of our star, and an international team of scientists searched thousands of other stars to try to find out if the sun has always been as .. show full overview
2020x37
How the Movement of Other Planets Affects Earth — Yes, Really
Episode overview
Scientists have found at least three cycles in nature that can be traced back to the alignment of the planets. And while they won’t tell you anything about your love life or personality, .. show full overview
2020x38
Carbon on the Moon Hints That It Didn’t Form Like We Thought
Episode overview
The idea that the Moon is a blown-off chunk of the Earth is known as the giant impact hypothesis - but the presence of carbon on the Moon throws this hypothesis into question.
2020x39
These Stars Are Being Eaten Alive from the Inside
Episode overview
In general, a star’s size will determine its final destiny. Some stars fizzle out, while others explode, and what seals their fate may come down to a curious, cannibalistic process happening inside their cores!
2020x40
The Equator Is a Bad Place for These Rocket Launches
Episode overview
Some satellites orbit in the same direction the planet rotates, which means they get a boost for their launch, but most have orbits where that isn’t ideal, and that creates some challenges for engineers.
2020x41
The Cosmic Lasers That Form in Outer Space
Episode overview
Lasers are incredible narrow beams of light we can use to do everything from cutting metal to operating on people's eyeballs. But even though we came up with the idea on our own, humans didn’t actually make the first lasers.
2020x42
No, We Didn't Discover a Bizarro Universe
Episode overview
Scientists picked up two unusual signals that seemed to be coming up from the ground instead of down from space. They're still working on understanding why, but despite what you may have .. show full overview
2020x43
The Key to Finding Life Elsewhere in the Universe: Purple Planets?!?
Episode overview
Some scientists believe that 3.6 billion years ago Earth might have been purple, and that theory is giving us some clues in our search for life in the universe.
2020x44
This Collision Could Have Created the Solar System
Episode overview
A dwarf galaxy crashing through the Milky Way billions of years ago could have set off periods of star formation, and astronomers recently captured a rare flashing phenomenon that only shows up in the sky for a few days!
2020x45
How to Kill a Galaxy
Episode overview
Our Milky Way galaxy is alive and well, producing new stars all the time. But there’s another group of galaxies out there, populated only by venerable red dwarf stars - the young stars .. show full overview
2020x46
We Still Can't Find the First Stars in the Universe
Episode overview
Astronomers looking farther back in time than ever before are giving us a better idea of what the early universe must have been like, and we've identified another of the mysterious ultraluminous X-ray pulsars.
2020x47
Mars Express: Triumph From Disaster
Episode overview
Mars Express, one of the longest-running planetary probes ever made, was only intended to last for about two Earth years, but it's still going at 17! And it's taught us an unbelievable .. show full overview
2020x48
Dust Could Turn Extreme Planets Habitable
Episode overview
Some tidally-locked exoplanets might actually be more habitable than astronomers initially thought, and we have some ideas about how Peter Pan disks can last so much longer than other protoplanetary disks.
2020x49
3 Medical Breakthroughs from the International Space Station
Episode overview
This episode has no summary.
2020x50
Our Galaxy Could Be Full of Exoplanets with Oceans
Episode overview
Earlier this spring NASA announced a new research model that predicts that ocean worlds are far from rare, and our galaxy might be full of them. And a new study examines evidence that Pluto may have had an underground ocean all along!
2020x51
5 Unusual Places to Look for Life | Compilation
Episode overview
This episode has no summary.
2020x51
This Planet Used to Be the Core of a Gas Giant?
Episode overview
Scientists may have found the light from two merging black holes, and a gas giant, without the gas.
2020x52
How Celestial Bodies Affect Life in the Ocean
Episode overview
Life on Earth has always been shaped by other bodies in space, and life in our oceans is especially susceptible to interactions that have huge effects on life as we know it!
2020x53
This Massive Star Just... Vanished
Episode overview
Astronomers have some insights into the mysterious disappearance of the luminous blue variable star in the Kinman Dwarf Galaxy, and we're digging up more clues about how our friend the Moon may have formed.
2020x54
The First Time We Met a Comet, We Blew a Hole in It
Episode overview
In the first mission of its kind, Deep Impact’s goal was to teach us about the interior of comets...by blowing a hole in the side of one!
2020x55
The Mysterious Green Glass on the Moon (Plus: How to See Comet NEOWISE!)
Episode overview
Earlier this month, a Chinese moon rover discovered a mysterious glittery substance at the bottom of a lunar crater. How did it get there? Also, Comet NEOWISE takes thousands of years to circle the Sun, and right now we can see it in our night sky!
2020x56
Cosmic Shear: Revealing the Invisible Universe
Episode overview
What exactly are the invisible things out there, and how did they help form the universe as we know it? To explore and understand the most spectacular structures out there, scientists .. show full overview
2020x57
These Icy Rocks Might Be from Another Solar System
Episode overview
New research suggests that Venus’ patterned crust might currently be more active than we thought! Astrophysicists have also modeled the orbits of mysterious objects between Jupiter and .. show full overview
2020x58
How Radio Waves Could Help Clear the Way to Space
Episode overview
There is an invisible shell of radiation surrounding our planet that can wipe out satellites and could endanger future explorers. One possible solution to this problem? Good, old-fashioned radio waves.
2020x59
3 New Missions Just Left for Mars!
Episode overview
A launch window that only happens every 26 months means it’s the perfect time to head to Mars! The United Arab Emirates, China, and the United States all took advantage of this excellent timing.
2020x60
The Planets with Inside-Out Weather
Episode overview
Way out in the solar system, the heat of the Sun drops off dramatically, so the gas giants get just a tiny percent of the solar radiation that reaches Earth. Instead, their weather is fueled from the inside out!
2020x61
This Stellar Blast Showered the Universe with… Calcium
Episode overview
We knew some stars created large amounts of calcium, but no one really ever knew how...until now! Plus, astrophysicists believe they’ve finally seen evidence of the star that created one of the most important supernovas ever!
2020x62
Satellite Squad Goals: The Cluster Mission to the Magnetic Field
Episode overview
Earth’s magnetic field is special! And, in the last 20 years, we’ve made incredible discoveries, thanks to a squad of probes that have flown around our planet, observing solar wind as a team!
2020x63
Looking for Life During a Lunar Eclipse
Episode overview
Astronomers took advantage of a lunar eclipse to study Earth as if it were an exoplanet, and Mars's Insight lander used seismic data to reveal for the first time boundaries between different layers of Mars.
2020x64
How Plastic Balls and Garbage Cans Help Us Study Space
Episode overview
How can we be so sure of the way celestial bodies behave when they're so far away? With the help of some speakers, garbage cans, and springs of course.
2020x65
Mystery Solved: We Finally Know Why Betelgeuse Suddenly Faded
Episode overview
Our neighboring star Betelgeuse got noticeably dimmer a few months ago, and thanks to the Hubble telescope, we recently figured out what was going on. Also, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico suffered some damage this week.
2020x66
The History Hidden in Martian Dunes
Episode overview
The Red Planet was once more like Earth, with a thicker atmosphere and liquid water. Now, scientists are looking for clues to its past in the planet’s ancient fossil dunes, barchan dunes, and ghost dunes.
2020x67
We're Getting Closer to Predicting Solar Flares
Episode overview
A new model has been able to predict solar flares with up to about 20 hours of warning, and our galaxy is farting blobs of cold gas inside the Fermi Bubbles!
2020x68
Mars's Surface Is Messed Up | The Martian Dichotomy
Episode overview
Most rocky planets have pretty consistent surface features, with a fairly even mix of mountains and basins in each hemisphere. This is NOT the case on Mars! What do scientists know about this mystery?
2020x69
The First Water on Earth Might've Come From… Earth?
Episode overview
Astronomers have thought for years that Earth was dry in the beginning, but a new paper suggests that Earth might have actually started out wet! And In other meteorite news, a new study .. show full overview
2020x70
The Cosmic Ladder That Lets Us Map the Universe
Episode overview
Considering how massive our universe is, we know the distances to cosmic objects surprisingly well. What tools and clues do scientists use to measure distances that are so enormous they sound like made-up numbers?
2020x71
Found: The Missing Link of Black Holes
Episode overview
Astronomers have been trying to figure out black holes for hundreds of years, and newly published research may hold some big clues! Plus, rust isn’t supposed to happen in dry and airless .. show full overview
2020x72
The Telescope That Revealed the X-Ray Universe
Episode overview
Some of the most exciting phenomena in space can’t be seen from Earth because our atmosphere soaks up high-energy light. That’s why NASA built Chandra, the most powerful X-ray telescope .. show full overview
2020x73
Dark Matter Is Even Stranger Than We Thought
Episode overview
Scientists can see how dark matter is distributed based on how its gravity affects light, but when astronomers compared recent data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large .. show full overview
2020x74
The Simple Molecule Behind Our Complex Universe
Episode overview
All the complexity in the universe ultimately owes its existence to one of the simplest materials possible: molecular hydrogen. And not only did this molecule play a huge role in .. show full overview
2020x75
It’s Probably Not Aliens on Venus… But It Could Be
Episode overview
Is there life on Venus? If there is, it would have to be unlike anything we’ve ever seen! New evidence means the possibility of life there is in question, but it could also mean a few other things.
2020x76
3 Times We Intentionally Crashed into Other Worlds
Episode overview
Most of the time, it’s not great when an expensive spacecraft slams into an extraterrestrial body. But now and then mission control intentionally crashes a spacecraft for science!
2020x77
We Know More About That Underground Lake on Mars
Episode overview
Scientists have taken a look at the underground lake found on Mars in 2018, and it might not be the only one! Plus, new clues might help us understand why the Sun’s atmosphere is so much hotter than the surface!
2020x78
How the Space Shuttle Atlantis Changed Space Exploration
Episode overview
From launching probes to ferrying experiment racks to the ISS, the Space Shuttle Atlantis has left quite the legacy on space exploration and scientific research.
2020x79
A Violent Origin Story for Tiny Space Diamonds
Episode overview
Scientists may have discovered some clues to two vastly different anomalies. Microscopic diamonds inside of meteors, and why ancient black holes are so massive.
2020x80
The Two-Faced Role of Planetary Magnetic Fields
Episode overview
Given that Earth’s magnetic field helps protect its life-sustaining atmosphere, you might think that the stronger a planet’s magnetic field, the better. But as it turns out, some .. show full overview
2020x82
How We Learned Black Holes Actually Exist | 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics
Episode overview
Did you know Einstein never thought we’d find actual black holes in space? It took decades of research to show black holes are physically possible, and some of the scientists behind that .. show full overview
2020x82
What's It Like to Live in Space? | Compilation
Episode overview
If you want to spend any amount of time in space, you'll have to make adjustments to your lifestyle. From what you eat, to how you go to the bathroom, to regular activities you're simply .. show full overview
2020x84
How to Find Dark Matter with a Billion Pendulums
Episode overview
Are you there Dark Matter? It's me, a billion pendulums.
2020x84
The First Time We Saw All of Venus: The Magellan Mission
Episode overview
This episode has no summary.
2020x85
There’s Water on the Moon—and Possibly More Than We Thought
Episode overview
If we want to establish a colony on the Moon, coming up with enough water is a huge challenge. Scientists have long suspected there might be water hiding on the lunar surface. Were they .. show full overview
2020x86
Fire, Lightning, and Crystals in Space: 20 Years on the ISS
Episode overview
2020 marks two decades of people living and working about the ISS, and from fireballs to microgravity grown crystals, they've been keeping busy.
2020x87
How Other-Worldly Auroras Help Us Explore the Galaxy
Episode overview
Earth’s northern and southern lights are some of the most magical sights on our planet. But they’re not unique to Earth, and aside from being beautiful, auroras can also give us unusual insights into these other worlds.
2020x88
On This Planet, the Floor Is Actually Lava
Episode overview
We have new insights into the bizarre nature of lava planets, and the icy moon Europa may yet reveal some of her salty secrets.
2020x89
The Deepest Sound in the Universe
Episode overview
Thanks to X-ray telescopes, scientists in the 1970s found the first real evidence that black holes actually existed, and astronomer Andrew Fabian has used X-ray research to unlock .. show full overview
2020x90
How Radioactivity Makes Planets Habitable
Episode overview
The perfect balance of radioactive elements inside planets like ours might make it habitable, and researchers are challenging some ideas about how Mars is losing its water.
2020x91
Jupiter's Moons May Keep Each Other Warm
Episode overview
As small as Jupiter's moons are in comparison to the giant planet, they may actually have an important role to play in keeping each other warm, heating the moons enough to have liquid oceans!
2020x93
5 Ways to Travel the Universe | Compilation
Episode overview
This episode has no summary.
2020x92
How a Doomed Spacecraft Lived to Tell the Tale of the Sun
Episode overview
What would you do if you were in charge of a billion-dollar satellite that was spinning out of control? In 1998, NASA and ESA engineers had to solve this exact problem. How did they avert this disaster?
2020x93
A Farewell to the Arecibo Observatory
Episode overview
On December 1, 2020, Arecibo's long-story came crashing down to an end. While it's sad to see this monumental observatory go, it's worth looking back over the many discoveries it's made over the last 60 years.
2020x94
The Tiny Planet Revealing Gravity’s Big Secrets
Episode overview
Mercury’s path through our solar system is, well, a little eccentric, and some of its movements were a mystery astronomers couldn’t explain for a long time. Then, in the early 20th century, Einstein reran the numbers and proved a whole lot more!
2020x95
This Nebula Is Disappearing Absurdly Fast
Episode overview
Over just 20 years, the Stingray nebula has become anywhere from 29 to 900 times dimmer! It could teach us a ton about how nebulas evolve over time, and what happens when everything is going a lot faster than expected.
2020x96
Our Smelly Solar System
Episode overview
Sight, sound, and yes, taste, have all helped humanity better understand space, but what about smells? Scientists think we have a pretty good idea of what some places smell like, and .. show full overview
2020x97
The Farthest Galaxy We've Ever Seen!
Episode overview
Scientists have spotted a galaxy from the early origins of the universe, and found evidence to support the existence of a 9th planet in our solar system.
2020x100
How Joan Feynman Demystified Auroras | Great Minds
Episode overview
The auroras are one of earth's most dazzling displays, but thanks to Joan Feynman we know that they're so much more.
2020x99
Space Superlatives of 2020!
Episode overview
2020 wasn't ALL bad news. This year scientists found ludicrously fast stars, ancient galaxy clusters, and developed a camera that could change how we study the night sky.
2020x100
We Used 1800s Math to Solve One of Jupiter’s Biggest Mysteries
Episode overview
Jupiter's storms cover the planet, but the ones at the planet’s poles have mystified astronomers for years: why haven’t they merged together yet?

Characters