An idea
Gravity
The pull that holds everything
Gravity is the quietest force there is. Everything that has any substance pulls on everything else, and the bigger something is, the more it pulls. You feel it every second of your life, which is exactly why it is so easy to forget.
The surprising part is how far it reaches. The same pull that keeps your feet on the floor stretches the whole ocean, curves a spacecraft around the Moon, and gathers a cloud of dust in space until it catches fire and becomes a star.
The shape of it
Where it turns up
10 nights that touch this idea.
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Tides
How the moon moves the sea
The Moon pulls the ocean it has never touched, and the sea rises twice a day.
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Artemis II
Journey to the moon and back
Orion aims just past the Moon and lets the Moon's gravity curve it home again.
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Moon Phases
Why the moon changes shape
Gravity is the reason the Moon keeps circling us at all, month after month.
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Saturn
A circle made of pieces
Billions of separate pieces of ice, each held in its own lane, looking like one smooth ring.
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Black Holes
The deep rivers of space
Gravity at its most extreme: a pull that even light cannot climb back out of.
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Shooting Stars
Wishes on ancient dust
A grain of ancient dust falls in, and the falling is what makes the light.
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Sixteen Sunrises
A day aboard the space station
Astronauts float because they are falling around the Earth, endlessly, and never landing.
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Nebula Nurseries
How stars are born
Gravity gathers a cold cloud for millions of years until its middle grows hot enough to shine.
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The Sun
Anchor of the solar system
One star holds eight planets steady without ever touching a single one.
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Hippos
The science of sinking
Too dense to float, a hippo simply walks along the riverbed in slow motion.
Keep following