Mission Pluto

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

The New Horizons team examines the latest findings and imagery from Pluto and the fringes of our solar system revealing a world unlike any other we've seen before.

A Story of Dogs

At the edge of our solar system supposedly lies an immense planet. Five to ten times the size of the Earth. Several international teams of scientists have been competing in a frantic race to detect it, in uncharted territories, far beyond Neptune. The recent discovery of several dwarf planets, with intriguing trajectories, have put astronomers on the trail of this mysterious planet. Why is this enigmatic planet so difficult to detect? What would a ninth planet teach us about our corner of the universe? Could it help us unlock some of the mysteries of our solar system?

NOVA captures New Horizons' historic flyby of Pluto, the culmination of the spacecraft's nine-year, three-billion-mile journey to reveal the first ever detailed images of this strange, icy world at the very edge of our solar system.

New Horizons is the first mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt of rocky, icy objects beyond. Principal Investigator Alan Stern leads a mission team that includes the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Southwest Research Institute, Ball Aerospace Corporation, the Boeing Company, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Stanford University, KinetX, Inc., Lockheed Martin Corporation, University of Colorado, the U.S. Department of Energy, and a number of other firms, NASA centers and university partners.

Three billion miles away a grand-piano-sized spacecraft is speeding through the outer solar system at nearly 1,000 miles per minute. After nearly a decade in space, the New Horizons space probe will have just 86 seconds to complete its primary mission: Discover the planet Pluto. This time-sensitive special will showcase the first quality pictures of Pluto that the probe will capture.

The New Horizons spacecraft attempts to fly by a mysterious object known as Arrokoth, believed to be a primordial building block of the solar system. Three years after taking the first spectacular photos of Pluto, New Horizons is four billion miles from Earth, trying to achieve the most distant flyby in NASA’s history. If successful, it will shed light on one of the least understood regions of our solar system: the Kuiper Belt.

Marc Minkowski conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Opera National de Lyon in this 1997 production of Offenbach's opera starring Natalie Dessay, Yann Beuron, Jean-Paul Fouchecourt and Laurent Naouri.

Pluto comes bounding outside to help Mickey get a Christmas tree. Chip 'n Dale see him and make fun of him, but the tree they take refuge in is the one Mickey chops down. They like the decorations, especially the candy canes and Mickey's bowl of mixed nuts. But Pluto spots them and goes after them long before Mickey spots them. Minnie, Donald, and Goofy drop by to sing carols.

Pluto's primitive wolf nature emerges and berates him for going soft. But their little hunting trip goes bad when Pluto encounters a rabbit and bear that give him some trouble.

Haunted by his past, Connell returns to his abandoned childhood home. Inside, he awakens Pluto, a towering anthropomorphic teddy bear tied to his buried memories and unresolved trauma. As Pluto pursues him through the house, Connell is forced to confront a series of nightmarish visions from his childhood - bringing him closer to the guilt that has consumed him his entire life. Equal parts haunting and redemptive, this story explores the weight of grief and the courage it takes to confront our deepest wounds.

A person pitches an idea to their boss about manipulation of gravity.

Un hombre sin miedo

Como Combustível Para As Máquinas

For this work Alÿs purchased a gun in Mexico City then walked through the city streets with the weapon in his hand. After eleven minutes he was arrested by the police. The following day he repeated the action, this time in cooperation with the police. By presenting a record of this dramatic action alongside footage of its reenactment, Alÿs blurs the boundaries between documentation and fiction. Questioning the concept of authenticity, this work demonstrates “how media can distort and dramatize the immediate reality of a moment,” the artist has said. Gallery label from Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception, May 8–August 1, 2011.

Experimental Video Opera.

Juremeiras

La théorie de l'évolution

On his 89th birthday, renowned English broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough pays his first ever visit to the White House to be interviewed by one of his biggest fans, United States President Barack Obama.