spherical planet

Jeija demonstrates a modified Minetest game with a spherical planet, using a grid transform to make a voxel world round. It includes the orbit math and download links for the spheretest build.

Explains the proposed NASA JPL plan to use the Sun as a gravitational lens, sending solar sail craft to its focal region to image an exoplanet's surface. It covers the distances involved, how imaging with the Sun would work and the mission design.

PBS Space Time explains the proposal to use the Sun's gravity as a giant lens, sending a train of small light-sail spacecraft to the focal point roughly 550 AU out. It covers how such a telescope could image exoplanets in surprising detail and the engineering challenges involved.

A three-minute clip from BBC's Planet Earth narrated by David Attenborough about Cordyceps, the fungus that infects insects and takes over their behavior. It shows an infected ant and its demise.

CodeParade's short devlog on how spherical geometry looks in 2D and 3D and why it feels so unusual, part of the Hyperbolica series on a non-Euclidean game.

Elon Musk's 2016 IAC presentation on the technical challenges and architectures for building a self-sustaining human presence on Mars.

A short BBC Planet Earth clip from the Pole to Pole episode showing the courtship displays of birds of paradise.

Aamer Rahman of Fear of a Brown Planet delivers a stand-up routine on so-called reverse racism, arguing about power imbalance and why criticism of a dominant group is not equivalent to racism.

George Carlin's stand-up routine arguing the planet will be fine and it is people who are in trouble. It mocks the idea of saving the planet.

Planet of the Humans, a full documentary by Jeff Gibbs presented by Michael Moore, arguing that the green movement has been co-opted by corporate and wealthy interests and that techno-fixes are not enough.

The secret project cutscene for The Planetary Datalinks from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, featuring a quote about free information flow as the safeguard against tyranny.

Planets is a track from the audiovisual album Oscilloscope Music, in which the audio signal drives an analog oscilloscope directly. The left channel sets horizontal deflection and the right sets vertical, so the sound draws vector graphics.

Joseph Everett, with Dr. Frank Mitloehner, argues that eating less meat will not do much for the climate. He covers beef's water footprint, land and feed use, and methane.

Utah State plant scientist Bruce Bugbee presents his analysis of the energy and environmental costs of vertical and indoor farming. He argues artificial lighting cannot compete with sunlight in fields or greenhouses.

An animated Kurzgesagt explainer on bacteriophages, viruses that kill bacteria, covering how they infect and burst cells and their potential as therapy against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Michael Shellenberger argues in a TEDx talk that solar and wind need huge amounts of land and mining, and says nuclear power is a better path to protecting both the climate and nature.

A Blender-animated explanation of the Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive, showing how the engine, two motor-generators, planetary gearset and battery work together as an eCVT.

Weber State's Professor Kelly explains the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid transaxle, including its planetary gearset eCVT and all nine operating modes. It also covers how the engine reaches nearly 40 percent thermal efficiency.

Fraser Cain interviews JPL physicist Slava Turyshev about using the Sun's gravity as a lens to image distant exoplanets. They cover how the lens works, how a spacecraft would align with it, and mission design.

Tom Chi gives the opening talk of a Foresight Institute competition on clean energy and clean air, framing excess CO2 as a carbon debt to repay and discussing large-scale tree planting, including by drone.

A short animated explanation of the power split device in Toyota-style hybrids, a planetary gearset that works as an eCVT. It shows how engine and motor power are combined.

An 8-minute clip of George Carlin's 1992 stand-up bit on the environment, arguing the planet will be fine and it is people who are in trouble. It leans on the contrast between Earth's 4.5 billion years and humanity's 200,000.

David Kipping presents his proposed Terrascope, a telescope that uses Earth's atmosphere as a lens to achieve enormous magnification. He covers the history of telescopes and his path to the idea, plus Sol-scope and Jupiter-scope variants.

Kurzgesagt lays out a speculative plan to terraform Venus, covering its hostile atmosphere and how it might be made Earth-like, with a sources page linked.

A Veritasium video on the asteroid threat, with UCLA's Dave Jewitt explaining detection efforts and how different asteroid sizes compare in damage.

The first of Richard Feynman's 1964 Cornell Messenger Lectures, The Character of Physical Law, focusing on the law of gravitation. Feynman builds up from planetary motion to the nature of physical laws.

Physicist Al Bartlett's well-known lecture on the arithmetic of exponential growth, applied to population, energy consumption and resource depletion. He argues that steady percentage growth cannot be sustained on a finite planet and that most public discussion ignores this.

A visual scale comparison of stars and cosmic objects, from planets up to some of the largest known stars, set to music. It is meant to convey the vastness of the universe.

A minutephysics explainer on why the planets orbit in a flat plane. It shows how conserved angular momentum flattens a collapsing cloud of matter into a disk.

The old announcement trailer for Hyperbolica, CodeParade's Unity game set in hyperbolic and spherical space. The creator has since posted devlog videos on building it.

A short animation reconstructing a planet's looping orbit using Ptolemy's epicycles and deferents, with the epicycles tracing out the face of Homer Simpson. It shows how enough circles can reproduce nearly any shape.

Terence Tao and Grant Sanderson of 3Blue1Brown walk through the cosmic distance ladder, showing how humans measured distances from the Earth to the Moon, Sun, planets and beyond. It includes animations and the history behind each step.

Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 film Solaris, in which a psychologist is sent to a space station orbiting a planet with an alien intelligence and meets his dead wife there. It is the full movie, uploaded by Mosfilm.

Kurzgesagt introduces the Fermi paradox: with so many stars and planets, why do we see no sign of aliens? It sets up the question and what it might imply for our own future. It is part 1 of 2.

A short Boston Dynamics clip of the Sand Flea, an 11-pound RC-car-style robot that can jump about 30 feet into the air. An onboard stabilization system keeps it oriented in flight and for landings.

Sabine Hossenfelder explains that waste heat from ever-growing energy use could eventually boil the oceans in a few centuries, whatever the energy source. She discusses proposed ways to cool the planet.

Isaac Arthur examines options for colonizing Venus, from vast floating habitats in the temperate upper atmosphere to full terraforming of the planet. It is a long-form speculative futurism episode in his solar system colonization series.

A long conversation between Eric Weinstein and Daniel Schmachtenberger on whether humanity can flourish long term on a single planet, introducing the Game A versus Game B framing. It covers catastrophic risk and alternatives to rivalrous systems.

A NASA Langley concept video for HAVOC, a lighter-than-air vehicle that would carry two astronauts on a 30-day mission in Venus's upper atmosphere. It explains why the planet's surface is so hostile and why the clouds are more habitable.

John Oliver explains how plastics harm the planet and why recycling is not the solution consumers have been led to believe. He argues corporations and policymakers must act, not just individuals.