Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Since it first began orbiting Mars in 2006, the HiRISE (High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), a powerful camera attached to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has captured some 50,000 images of the planet. Its photographs have given scientists unprecedented access to Mars’s canyons, craters, mountains and sand dunes – the most detailed looks at the topography of another planet to date. In making A Fictive Flight Above Real Mars, the Finnish filmmaker Jan Fröjdman transformed stereoscopic anaglyphs taken by HiRISE into coloured, seemingly three-dimensional moving images, giving viewers something resembling the experience of a leisurely flight above our neighbouring planet. While often breathtaking, the video depicts unmistakably desolate, barren landscapes, hostile to human life, and still very far from a place to call home.
Director: Jan Fröjdman
video
Astronomy
The remarkable innovations inspired by our need to know the night sky
5 minutes
video
Physics
To change the way you see the Moon, view it from the Sun’s perspective
5 minutes
video
Space exploration
The rarely told story of the fruit flies, primates and canines that preceded us in space
12 minutes
video
Physics
The rhythms of a star system inspire a pianist’s transfixing performance
5 minutes
video
Physics
What does it look like to hunt for dark matter? Scenes from one frontier in the search
7 minutes
video
Physics
Imagining spacetime as a visible grid is an extraordinary journey into the unseen
12 minutes
video
Physics
The abyss at the edge of human understanding – a voyage into a black hole
4 minutes
video
Astronomy
The history of astronomy is a history of conjuring intelligent life where it isn’t
34 minutes
video
Biography and memoir
Passed over as the first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight carved out an impressive second act
13 minutes