Cyclone Freddy batters Madagascar
Cyclone Freddy has made landfall on Madagascar, leaving destruction in its wake. At the time this edition of Science In Action is going to air, Freddy is on course to reach Mozambique and South Africa. Freddy, which has been gaining strength since it originally formed on the 30th of January, is the most powerful southern hemisphere cyclone on record. Professor Francois Engelbrecht provides the science behind the storm system.
In the centre of our galaxy, an enormous cloud is heading towards the Milky Way\u2019s supermassive black hole. Dr Anna Ciurlo tells us that this is a unique opportunity to study the influence of the black hole on the cloud\u2019s shape and properties.
We\u2019ve heard a lot about balloons floating above Earth recently\u2026 but what about sending balloons to Venus? That\u2019s exactly what Dr Siddharth Krishnamoorthy is proposing in order to study Venus\u2019s seismic activity. Recorders on a \u201cfloatilla\u201d above the planet\u2019s surface could listen into Venus-quakes and reveal Venus\u2019s mysterious past.
And closer to home, scientists have discovered a new layer in the Earth\u2019s core. We journey into the very centre of the Earth with Professor Hrvoje Tkal\u010di\u0107, who tells Roland what the innermost inner core can teach us about our planet\u2019s past.
Image: NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS).
Producer: Roland Pease\nAssistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston