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PBS Space Time
How We Know The Earth Is Ancient
Season 6
Episode 11
In astronomy we talk about billions of years like it’s no big deal. But how can we be sure about timescales so far beyond the capacity for human intuition? Our discovery of what we now call deep time is very recent - as recent as our discovery of the true spatial vastness of our universe. And it came as scientists tried to measure the age of the Earth. What they found was shocking and humbling.
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One of the most important reasons we go to space is to know our own planet better.
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Can something that exists be bad science?
18:56
It may be that our very DNA inherited its twist from the underlying handedness of reality.
17:21
Did God have any choice in creating the world? So asked Albert Einstein
18:19
What if, just before we reach the bottom, we find out that reductionism fails?
19:03
The biggest news in cosmology in recent years is that dark energy may be fading away.
18:50
Does this also explain why there are no aliens?
16:58
Quantum energy teleportation may be as close as we get to transporter beams. But how close is that?
14:50
Why is there any matter in the universe? A new antimatter breakthrough at LHC holds clues.
16:30
There’s an extremely good chance that Earth once did have a ring system.
17:23
How is it possible to tell if a space rock will one day collide with the Earth?
15:58
Did you know that many of us have up to 4% neanderthal DNA?