UKH

For those who haven't seen the analysis on Pluto, following the New Horizons probe, this BBC Horizon show will be a revelation.... otherwise a pretty good summary with some interesting sub stories (including a near-miss of total mission fialure: the probe had to be reprogrammed to function just before it arrived!).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kqm9

I didn't watch it last night but we saw it a few months ago and apart from the emotional satisfaction of having Pluto "rerecognized" I thought it incredible and beautiful.  So much so I felt sad I'd never be able to go and see this lonely beautiful little world

Mission to Titan was pretty good as well, a few years back - still got a recording of it

Perhaps give it a few months, and then try landing on the Dover beaches in a rubber dinghy?

Agree, it is an excellent and informative programme.

Dave

I'd given up on BBC Horizon as it was too info light and gimmicky. But this was top notch and a return to what I'd hope from a science prog.

Missed it, but I think I've seen it before; good programme.

What I think is truly amazing is the guy who worked out the trajectory of the Voyagers just with pen and paper (and rudimentary computers) back in the late 50s or early 60s, whenever it was.  Plus the engineering, the little buggers are still going!

That was enjoyable! Pluto's giant heart emoji stamped across it's surface (made of liquid nitrogen) is very 2022

Voyager 1 and 2 (built to last five years (not 44!) and out in the heliosphere) are being powered down, I read.

The most exciting (for me) discovery yet to be made would be the location of Planet 9. There are theories (not crackpot ones) that it could be a primordial black hole the size of a tennis ball

Agree completely.

Years ago Horizon was a programme you had to put some effort into watching and listening to. But for too long it pandered to the attention span of a goldfish - can't have a sequence lasting more than a few seconds without rapidly changing camera angles etc.

Dave

"Poor little guy, he loved being on the team!"
youtube.com/watch?v=k4Ar67rTO_w&

I watched that one a while ago and agree, very interesting and less annoyingly clickbaity than Horizon generally seems to be these days.

This latest episode is a seriously impressive bit of telly.  Prof. Hannah Fry discussing issues around the screening and treatment of cancer from, on the one hand, a dispassionate and mathematical point of view and, on the other, just about the most personal point of view imaginable.  Thought provoking and moving stuff: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017wzq