Find out what sound a black hole makes, if (possible) alien life is blocking starlight and other astounding things happening in our galaxy -- and beyond.

In this short talk, TED Fellow Sarah Parcak introduces the field of "space archaeology" -- using satellite images to search for clues to the lost sites of past civilizations.

Dustin Schroeder develops and uses geophysical radar to study Antarctica, Greenland and the icy moons of Jupiter.

Our lives depend on a world we can't see: the satellite infrastructure we use every day for information, entertainment, communication and so much more. But Earth orbit isn't a limitless resource, and the problem of space debris will get worse without a significant change to our behavior. Natalie Panek challenges us to consider the environmental ...

Quench your thirst for adventure with these breathtakingly bold talks that explore the Earth’s most spectacular corners, depths and peaks.

Join us in looking back at some of the most awe-inspiring things ever seen on the TED stage.

Technologist Galit Ariel believes that humanity's final frontier is the mind-blowing, space-bending technology known as augmented reality. Our bodies and minds are wired for rich physical interactions, and AR adds a digital layer directly onto or within our existing environment -- to transform our living rooms into lush jungles, for example. The...

Carolyn Porco shares exciting new findings from the Cassini spacecraft's recent sweep of one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus. Samples gathered from the moon's icy geysers hint that an ocean under its surface could harbor life.

The SETI Institute's Jill Tarter makes her TED Prize wish: to accelerate our search for cosmic company. Using a growing array of radio telescopes, she and her team listen for patterns that may be a sign of intelligence elsewhere in the universe.

While we like to imagine little green men, it's far more likely that life on other planets will be microbial. Planetary scientist Nathalie Cabrol takes us inside the search for microbes on Mars, a hunt which counterintuitively leads us to the remote lakes of the Andes mountains. This extreme environment — with its thin atmosphere and scorched la...

What happens when a mall falls into ruin? Filmmaker Dan Bell guides us through abandoned monoliths of merchandise, providing a surprisingly funny and lyrical commentary on consumerism, youth culture and the inspiration we can find in decay.

What's up at SpaceX? Engineer Gwynne Shotwell was employee number seven at Elon Musk's pioneering aerospace company and is now its president. In conversation with TED curator Chris Anderson, she discusses SpaceX's race to put people into orbit and the organization's next big project, the BFR (ask her what it stands for). The new giant rocket is ...

Dr. Heidi Hammel is an interdisciplinary scientist for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched in 2021 to search for the first galaxies or luminous objects formed after the Big Bang.

About this event: How do space technologies impact our everyday lives? Ho will they evolve in the future? What are the big trends? How science from space exploration gets back to our hands?

The universe is incredibly old, astoundingly vast and populated by trillions of planets -- so where are all the aliens? Astronomer Stephen Webb has an explanation: we're alone in the universe. In a mind-expanding talk, he spells out the remarkable barriers a planet would need to clear in order to host an extraterrestrial civilization -- and make...

By studying how ant colonies work without any one leader, Deborah Gordon has identified striking similarities in how ant colonies, brains, cells and computer networks regulate themselves.

On October 24, 2014, Alan Eustace donned a custom-built, 235-pound spacesuit, attached himself to a weather balloon, and rose above 135,000 feet, from which point he dove to Earth, breaking both the sound barrier and previous records for high-altitude jumps. Hear his story of how -- and why.

Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco shows images from the Cassini voyage to Saturn, focusing on its largest moon, Titan, and on frozen Enceladus, which seems to shoot jets of ice.

Ski to the North Pole. Row across the Pacific. Swim on Mt. Everest(!). These adventurers have pushed themselves to the limits of human endurance, and in these talks they share what they've learned about themselves and the planet.

Something massive, with roughly 1,000 times the area of Earth, is blocking the light coming from a distant star known as KIC 8462852, and nobody is quite sure what it is. As astronomer Tabetha Boyajian investigated this perplexing celestial object, a colleague suggested something unusual: Could it be an alien-built megastructure? Such an extraor...

Dear science, where would we be without you? Enjoy these enthralling talks dedicated to the fun, funky and fascinating scientific world.

What would it take to live on Mars? In an imaginative talk, architect Bjarke Ingels shares his prototype Martian "city" in Dubai, where they're building technologies that humanity would need to thrive on the Red Planet.

In October 2017, astrobiologist Karen J. Meech got the call every astronomer waits for: NASA had spotted the very first visitor from another star system. The interstellar comet -- a half-mile-long object eventually named `Oumuamua, from the Hawaiian for "scout" or "messenger" -- raised intriguing questions: Was it a chunk of rocky debris from a ...

Entrepreneur Elon Musk is a man with many plans. The founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX sits down with TED curator Chris Anderson to share details about his visionary projects, which include a mass-marketed electric car, a solar energy leasing company and a fully reusable rocket.

About this event: In this event we demonstrated how with local actions, in small towns, and few people, can help to address global challenges. We spoke about climate change, space exploration, creativity, emotions, rural sustainability, empathy and social networks, etc...

Teacher and musician John Hunter is the inventor of the World Peace Game (and the star of the documentary "World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements").

At the heart of the Milky Way, there's a supermassive black hole that feeds off a spinning disk of hot gas, sucking up anything that ventures too close -- even light. We can't see it, but its event horizon casts a shadow, and an image of that shadow could help answer some important questions about the universe. Scientists used to think that maki...

Snow Dragon. Pure Imagination. Frozen Minotaur. These are the names Eddy Cartaya and his climbing partner Brent McGregor gave three glacier caves that they were the first to explore. As the Sandy Glacier slowly slides down Mount Hood in Oregon, the caves and tunnels inside it morph annually thanks to warm water from above and warm air from below...

Ocean explorer Robert Ballard takes us on a mindbending trip to hidden worlds underwater, where he and other researchers are finding unexpected life, resources, even new mountains. He makes a case for serious exploration and mapping. Google Ocean, anyone?

"Life makes our planet an incredibly exotic place compared to the rest of the known universe," says astrobiologist Betül Kaçar, whose research uses statistics and mathematical models to simulate ancient environments and gather insights into the origins of existence. In this fascinating talk, she explores how a deeper understanding of chemistry c...