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    How would the world look if we could see the magnetic fields around us?

    Undetectable to the human eye except when accentuated by phenomena such as solar flares and aurora borealis, magnetic fields are nonetheless ubiquitous on the Sun and most of the planets in our solar system, including Earth. Using very low frequency (VLF) audio recordings of crackling electron activity, animated renderings of magnetic fields in motion at NASA’s Space Sciences Laboratories at the University of California, Berkeley, and narrated by magnetic field experts, Magnetic Movie brings a hidden, perpetually kinetic world to life.

    Directors: Joe Gerhardt, Ruth Jarman

    28 May 2015
    Monochrome photo of concentric circular patterns resembling sound waves or ripples viewed from above forming a deep central hole.

    videoEarth science and climate

    Magnetic and majestic: visualising the powerful storms hidden from human view

    5 minutes

    Close-up of the Sun’s surface with visible solar flares and sunspots, captured in vibrant red and yellow hues.

    videoAstronomy

    Let the Sun’s invisible solar winds wash over you in ultra high-definition video

    30 minutes

    The Sun’s fiery surface, with intense solar flares and prominences with bright, glowing, swirling patterns.

    videoCosmology

    The Sun – our steady, reliable companion – tells a very different story up close

    4 minutes

    A dark sky with numerous stars and a bright, luminous object emitting light in the centre.

    videoAstronomy

    Celebrating the rough, the raw and the human in hardcore space science

    3 minutes

    A street scene with a huge, digitally added Saturn dominating the sky, power lines, trees and a business sign visible.

    videoAstronomy

    Close encounters of a different kind – what if Venus, Neptune or Saturn hovered close by?

    2 minutes

    Abstract black-and-white image featuring a spherical shape at the centre surrounded by an intricate web of swirling, crisscrossing lines, creating a three-dimensional effect. The background is dark, enhancing the contrast and emphasising the white lines and central sphere.

    videoPhysics

    Imagining spacetime as a visible grid is an extraordinary journey into the unseen

    12 minutes

    Hand-drawn image of a stick figure holding ‘F’ with arrows pointing to a battery, lightning in a cloud and a red horseshoe magnet.

    videoPhysics

    How two scientists built a bridge between Newton and Einstein in ‘empty’ spaces

    5 minutes

    Image of Saturn’s rings and its largest moon, Titan, with cloud cover, as captured from space.

    videoSpace exploration

    Burning ice, metal clouds, gemstone rain – tour the strangest known exoplanets

    31 minutes

    Cartoon showing a stick figure next to a four-bar fence with orange beams going up into the sky over 10+ km. A thought bubble has a physics formula.

    videoPhysics

    Extremely small and incredibly fast, muons offer amazing proof of special relativity

    5 minutes