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‘Space junk’ – including defunct satellites, rocket fragments and even a spatula that escaped the clutches of the astronaut Piers Sellers – has been an inescapable byproduct of space exploration, with only a few negative consequences so far. But with some 200 million objects bigger than a millimetre in size orbiting the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour, every astronaut knows that they are, in Sellers’s words, ‘playing the odds’. Featuring interviews, archival footage and an inventive bit of narration from one of the most notable pieces of space junk, Cath Le Couteur’s whimsical short film Adrift puts the mounting, cosmic problem of space debris in perspective.
Director: Cath Le Couteur
Website: Project Adrift
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Animals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
14 minutes
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Computing and artificial intelligence
A future in which ‘artificial scientists’ make discoveries may not be far away
9 minutes
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History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
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Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
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Biology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
4 minutes
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War and peace
Two Ukrainian boys’ summer unfolds just miles from the frontlines
22 minutes
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Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
10 minutes
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Love and friendship
Never marry a man you love too much, and other views on romance in Sierra Leone
5 minutes
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Engineering
Can monumental ‘ice stupas’ help remote Himalayan villages survive?
15 minutes