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While we have never been closer to becoming an interplanetary species, any hopes humanity has for inhabiting planets beyond our solar system – let alone solar systems beyond it – remain a distant dream. However, as this stunningly-rendered CGI animation from the Stockholm-based director Erik Wernquist shows, while human-transporting spacecrafts that might traverse the vast distances between planets and even stars are still quite far off, they’re theoretically possible. Commissioned by the Limitless Space Institute in Texas, which seeks to ‘advance human exploration beyond our solar system’, the video features the US aerospace engineer Harold ‘Sonny’ White describing three potential modes of interstellar space travel at three different levels of speed and sophistication.
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Animals and humans
The wild tale of a young animal keeper, an angry tiger and a torn circle net
10 minutes
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Technology and the self
Why single Chinese women are freezing their eggs in California
24 minutes
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The ancient world
Petty squabbles and bloody battles – the life of an ancient Roman soldier
18 minutes
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Astronomy
The remarkable innovations inspired by our need to know the night sky
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Knowledge
Why it takes more than a lifetime to truly understand a single meadow
11 minutes
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Physics
Groundbreaking visualisations show how the world of the nucleus gives rise to our own
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War and peace
‘She is living on in many hearts’ – Otto Frank on the legacy of his daughter’s diary
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Art
Why Diego Velázquez needed a lifetime to paint his enigmatic masterpiece
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Earth science and climate
There’s a ‘climate bomb’ ticking beneath the Arctic ice. How can we prepare?
8 minutes