Wonders of the Moon with Dara Ó Briain S01E02 - Episode 2

Dara loves telescopes and is also a keen astrophotographer. In his back garden, Dara shows some of the pictures he has taken of the moon, but they all show the same side. Why is this? And what secrets does far side of the moon hold?

Dara visits Jodrell Bank – home of the UK's largest radio telescope - to tell the story of how the first photograph of the far side of the moon was taken in the 1950s and why the picture left scientists baffled, because it showed that the far side looks completely different to the side we see every evening.

But there are other secrets that we are only just now starting to unlock. Scientists have been testing the rocks that the last astronauts who walked on the moon brought back, and have recently discovered that locked within them is water. Lots of it. Dara finds out how this discovery is changing lunar exploration.

But everyone knows that to discover further secrets that moon might hold; we need to go back there. Dara travels to Cologne in Germany to meet Samantha Cristoforetti, a European astronaut who hopes to one day walk there. And Dara tries a virtual reality headset used to train astronauts as he takes his very own ‘giant leap', walking on the moon's surface.

Back in the UK Dara visits British scientists building technology they hope will solve the moon's final secrets. Dr Simeon Barber shows Dara some of the miniaturised technology being sent to the moon over the next decade to study it and Professor Mahesh Anand shows Dara how we could one day use its resources to 3D print a moonbase.