Astronomy for You

A series of programs designed for the adult layman who has a curiosity about the skies and the makeup of the universe in which we live. The terms used during the series are fully explained and materials from a number of great observatories and institutions of learning are used for visual illustration. It begins with the solar system and works outward, stimulating interest in this area and awakening a desire for further study and investigation.

The Farthest

The captivating tales of the people and events behind one of humanity's greatest achievements in exploration: NASA's Voyager mission.

BURN·E

What lengths will a robot undergo to do his job? BURN·E is a dedicated hard working robot who finds himself locked out of his ship. BURN·E quickly learns that completing a simple task can often be a very difficult endeavor.

Cassini's Grand Finale

To help visualize the dramatic final chapter in Cassini's remarkable story, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory produced this short film that features beautiful computer-generated animation, thoughtful narration and a rousing score. Producers at JPL worked with filmmaker Erik Wernquist, known for his 2014 short film "Wanderers," to create a stirring finale video befitting one of NASA's most successful missions of exploration.

New Horizons

A brief visualisation of NASA’s historic spacecrafts Mariner, Pioneer, Voyager, and Dawn, exploring the solar system, culminating in the New Horizons mission.

Miniverse

What if you could get behind the wheel and race through space? We scale down the Solar System to the continental United States and place the planets along the way to better appreciate the immense scale of the Universe. See space as never before, with Mars looming over the Freedom Tower and Jupiter towering above the Lincoln Memorial. Join former astronaut Chris Hadfield - a YouTube sensation for his performance of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” aboard the International Space Station - and his interstellar hitchhikers Michio Kaku and astronomers Derrick Pitts and Laura Danly. It’s a joyride from coast to coast - and from the sun to Pluto.

Close-Up on Planets

Computer animation and footage from NASA space missions explain how our solar system evolved and the place Earth has within the system.

The Standard Deviants: The Really Big World of Astronomy, Part 2

In Astronomy Part 2, you will learn all about the planets, asteroids, comets, meteoroids, the layers of the sun, fusion, and more. The Standard Deviants make learning astronomy easier with their unique teaching style, which incorporates humor, mnemonics, and sophisticated computer graphics.

The Standard Deviants: The Really Big World of Astronomy, Part 1

This series also covers the essential concepts of astronomy: gravity, the light spectrum, Earth's magnetic field, the solar system, the sun, Kepler's Law, the universal law of gravitation, the Doppler Effect, and much more!

What’s Wrong with Our Sun?

Searching for Skylab, America's Forgotten Triumph

The first American space station Skylab is found in pieces scattered in Western Australia. Putting these pieces back together and re-tracing the Skylab program back to its very conception reveals the cornerstone of human space exploration.

Our Violent Sun

Our Sun could erupt at any moment, spewing a vast wave of charged particles toward Earth that could leave millions of people without power for up to a year. Learn about the latest missions to protect our planet from this potentially devastating threat.

遊星王子

Attracted by the report of the development of a new type of rocket fuel, the vicious dictator of Krangkor, the dark planet, descends on Earth to steal the formula from its creator, the benevolent Dr. Makin.

Barn av stjerner

Astrophysicist Jean Surdej brings a small group of teenage pupils on a trip to the Lofoten islands in northern Norway, for a very special class on the solar system. Using the geography of the archipelago to illustrate the distances between the planets, they journey through space by car and ferry, with the picturesque landscapes standing in for the black emptiness that surround the heavenly bodies. A masterstroke of both pedagogy and filmmaking, Children of Stars is a captivating documentary about humanity's place in the grand scheme of things.

Voyage aux confins de l'univers

Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space

Star Wars is no longer science fiction The prospect of Earth being ruled from space is no longer science-fiction. The dream of the original Dr. Strangelove, Wernher von Braun (from Nazi rocket-scientist to NASA director) has survived every US administration since WW2 and is coming to life. Today the technology exists to weaponize space, a massive American industry thrives, and nations are maneuvering for advantage. PAX AMERICANA tackles this pivotal moment. Are war machines already orbiting Earth? Can treaties keep space weapons-free? Must the World capitulate to one super-cop on the global beat? With startling archival footage and unprecedented access to US Air Force Space Command, this elegant, forceful documentary reveals the state of play through generals, space-policy analysts, politicians, diplomats, peace activists, and hawks.

Living Worlds

What forms might life take in the Solar System and beyond? In the Academy's newest original planetarium show, see how a deeper understanding of Earth might help us locate other living worlds, light years away.

Riding Light

In our terrestrial view of things, the speed of light seems incredibly fast. But as soon as you view it against the vast distances of the universe, it's unfortunately very slow. This animation illustrates, in realtime, the journey of a photon of light emitted from the surface of the sun and traveling across a portion of the solar system, from a human perspective. Liberties were taken with certain things like the alignment of planets and asteroids, as well as ignoring the laws of relativity concerning what a photon actually "sees" or how time is experienced at the speed of light, but overall the size and distances of all the objects were kept as accurate as possible. It was also decided to end the animation just past Jupiter to keep the running length below an hour.

Earthbound

A family of space aliens crash lands on Earth when their spaceship conks out.

День рождения Алисы

Adapted from a novel from sci-fi series by Kyr Bulychev about a little girl Alice. It's Alice's birthday and as a present she is invited by an old alien friend archaeologist Gromozeka to join him on an expedition to an alien planet Coleida which population was destroyed by a space plague a hundred years ago. Arriving at the planet they decide that Alice, using a time-traveling device, will go back in time to the day when the plague was brought in by their space expedition to try and save the planet from destruction by spraying the astronauts with a vaccine. To achieve that, she and another alien scientist professor Rrrr, who looks just like a cat, must make a long and perilous journey to the planet's spaceport.