NOVA
Season 42 Episode 21 - Chasing Pluto
On July 14, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft, one of the most advanced ever built, is scheduled to fly by Pluto to take the very first detailed images of the dwarf planet. After nine years and 3 billion miles, we will finally get a close look at this strange, icy world, but only if the craft can survive the final, treacherous leg of its journey, which could take it through a dangerous field of debris. If it does, New Horizons is poised to make dramatic new discoveries, not just about Pluto, but about the vast realm of icy bodies lurking beyond Neptune, relics of the earliest days of the solar system’s formation. Back on Earth, the planetary scientists who have spent decades working on this mission anxiously await a signal from their spacecraft. Our cameras will be there to witness the moment. If all goes well, we’ll see Pluto’s mysterious surface in unprecedented detail and learn new secrets about other alien worlds at the far limits of our solar system.
Episodes in Season 42
Vaccines Calling the Shots
55 min
Rise of the Hackers
55 min
Why Planes Vanish
55 min
Surviving Ebola
55 min
Ben Franklin's Balloons
55 min
First Air War
55 min
Bigger Than T. rex
55 min
Emperor’s Ghost Army
55 min
Killer Landslides
55 min
First Man on the Moon
55 min
Big Bang Machine
55 min
Sunken Ship Rescue
55 min
Sinkholes—Buried Alive
55 min
Colosseum: Roman Death Trap
55 min
Petra: Lost City of Stone
55 min
Hagia Sophia: Istanbul’s Ancient Mystery
55 min
The Great Math Mystery
55 min
Invisible Universe Revealed
55 min
Nazi Attack on America
55 min
Lethal Seas
55 min
Chasing Pluto
55 min
Nuclear Meltdown Disaster
55 min
