Cosmic Journeys

Birth of the Moon

Scientists have been reconstructing the history of the Moon by scouring its surface, mapping its mountains and craters, and probing its interior. Find out what the origins of the Moon can tell us about our own planet's beginnings.

Attack of the Sun

Massive solar eruptions can pose a serious threat to our high-tech society. Learn about the havoc caused by the solar storms of Halloween 2003 and 1859. Dive into the inner regions of the Sun to find out what can cause our star to turn angry.

Super Hurricanes

Monster storms around the world seem to be occurring with greater frequency. But what is causing these typhoons and hurricanes that leave so much destruction in their wake? Can science unlock the mysterious origins of these super storms and is the worst still yet to come?

Saturn's Mysterious Moons

From the Cassini spacecraft comes one of the greatest photographic collections of all time. Scientists are using images of Saturn's moons to uncover a trail of clues pointing to the energy sources and complex chemistry needed to spawn life.

The Largest Black Holes in the Universe

Our Milky Way Galaxy is thought to harbor millions of black holes, the ultra dense remnants of dead stars. But now, in the universe far beyond our galaxy, there's evidence of something far more ominous. A breed of black holes that has reached incomprehensible size and destructive power. Just how large, and violent, and strange can they get?

How Large Is the Universe?

The mind-blowing answer comes from a theory describing the first micro-moments of our universe. Just as scientists began to make precise measurements of the observable universe, new ideas suggest that our visible patch is an impossibly small portion of the whole.

When Will Time End

Time is flying by on this busy, crowded planet as life changes from second to second. At the same time, the arc of the human lifespan is getting longer: 67 years is the global average, up from just 20 years in the Stone Age. How much time does the universe have? The answer may depend on whether Stephen Hawking was right in his theory that describes how black holes shed mass and eventually decay.

The Incredible Journey of Apollo 12

This is the ultimate buddy movie. November 14, 1969. Three astronauts with spacesuits, food, water, and a battery of scientific and communications equipment prepared to fly to the moon. Thousands gathered at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. How would the launch fare in a powerful electrical storm now gathering above the launch pad? That was just the start of Apollo 12's incredible journey.

Supermassive Black Hole in the Milky Way Galaxy

Mars: Earth That Never Was

Mars appears to be devoid of all life, but what about below the surface? Could this dusty red planet ever have been host to a multitude of microbiological life? Come explore these questions with the latest imagery and data from NASA.

The Search for Earth Like Planets

The latest from the planet-hunting frontier. Find out what we are learning about our place in the cosmos from the search for earth-like planets. This journey started tens of thousands of years ago, when humans began to fan out across the planet, following unknown pathways, crossing unmeasured distances. We traced coastlines, and sailed uncertain seas.

Voyage to Pandora

Venus: Death of a Planet

Why did Earth thrive and our sister planet, Venus, became a dead planet alien to life? From the fires of our sun's birth, twin planets emerged. But heir paths diverged, as nature draped one world in the greens and blues of life, while enveloping the other in acid clouds, high heat and volcanic flows. Scientists are looking for clues in Venus' history that explain its disastrous turn for the worst.

The Most Powerful Objects in the Universe

All across the immense reaches of time and space, energy is being exchanged, transferred, released, in a great cosmic pinball game we call our universe. This episodes traces the progression of energy events from the smallest and coldest, to the hottest and most powerful in all the cosmos.

Is the Universe Infinite?

Explore the biggest question of all. How far do the stars stretch out into space? And what's beyond them? In modern times, we built giant telescopes that have allowed us to cast our gaze deep into the universe. Astronomers have been able to look back to near the time of its birth. They've reconstructed the course of cosmic history in astonishing detail.

Alien Planets & Eyeball Earths

The Riddle of AntiMatter

One of the deepest mysteries about how our universe came to be may finally be yielding to human investigation. Scientists are mounting new efforts to figure out how matter survived, and what happened to its birth twin, a mysterious substance known as antimatter?

Mysteries of a Dark Universe

Cosmology has been turned on its head by a stunning discovery that the universe is flying apart in all directions at an ever-increasing rate. Find out what this Nobel Prize winning discovery means for the future of our universe.

Crashing Into the Moon

Astronomers have been tracking stars at the center of the Milky Way galaxy to probe a monster black hole that lurks in its dense gas clouds and star fields. They have turned up the best proof to date that black holes exist. Now, they are shooting for the first direct image of a black hole.

Birth of a Black Hole

It was one of the greatest mysteries in modern science: a series of brief but extremely bright flashes of ultra-high energy light coming from somewhere out in space. These gamma ray bursts were first spotted by spy satellites in the 1960s. It took three decades and a revolution in high-energy astronomy for scientists to figure out what they were.

Plasma Rockets & Solar Storms

Modern science has linked polar light shows, called auroras, to vast waves of electrified gas hurled in our direction by the sun. Today, researchers from a whole new generation see this dynamic substance, plasma, as an energy source that may one day fuel humanity's expansion into space. What can we learn, and how far can we go, by tapping into the strange and elusive fourth state of matter?

Voyager: Journey to the Stars

Having travelled tens of billions of kilometres away from Earth, the two Voyager spacecraft are streaking out into the void. What will we learn about the galaxy, the universe, and ourselves from Voyager's epic journey to the stars?

Earth in 1000 Years

With the polar ice caps continuing to melt and sea levels on the rise, scientists are looking back into our global climate history to see where our planet may be headed 1,000 years into the future and beyond.

Reinventing Space Flight