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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鈥檚 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鈥檚 shape and properties.

We鈥檝e heard a lot about balloons floating above Earth recently鈥� but what about sending balloons to Venus? That鈥檚 exactly what Dr Siddharth Krishnamoorthy is proposing in order to study Venus鈥檚 seismic activity. Recorders on a 鈥渇loatilla鈥� above the planet鈥檚 surface could listen into Venus-quakes and reveal Venus鈥檚 mysterious past.

And closer to home, scientists have discovered a new layer in the Earth鈥檚 core. We journey into the very centre of the Earth with Professor Hrvoje Tkal膷i膰, who tells Roland what the innermost inner core can teach us about our planet鈥檚 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
Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston