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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
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