Lecture 20: The History of Life on Earth

We end our exploration of life on the Earth with a look at death in the fossil record. This lecture looks at the role asteroidal impacts have played in the history of the Earth, and their possible role in mass extinction events in the fossil record. We will discuss near-earth ast ...  Show more

This first lecture of Unit 4 - Life in the Solar System - is a quick tour of our Solar System reviewing the planets, dwarf planets, moons, and small bodies that make up our celestial home. This lecture will introduce many of the places we will be considering in detail over the ne ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life cycle of stars. In his poem Bright Star John Keats wrote, "Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art". For Keats the stars were symbols of eternity- they were beautiful and ordered and unchanging - but modern astronomy tells a very d ...  Show more

Are we alone in the Universe? This lecture explores the question of how we might go about finding life on planets around other stars. Rather than talking about speculative ideas, like the Drake Equation or SETI, I am instead taking the approach of posing it as a problem of what t ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the abrupt transformation of stars after shining brightly for millions or billions of years, once they lack the fuel to counter the force of gravity. Those like our own star, the Sun, become red giants, expanding outwards and consuming nearby plane ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the abrupt transformation of stars after shining brightly for millions or billions of years, once they lack the fuel to counter the force of gravity. Those like our own star, the Sun, become red giants, expanding outwards and consuming nearby plane ...  Show more