Astronomy & Geology (Documentary)

A look at new worlds uncovered by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler Telescope, including whether any are like Earth and the type of life they might support.

An exploration of our discovery of the laws of nature and coordinates in space and time.

"Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" returns for a second season. Ann Druyan, original creative collaborator to Carl Sagan, serves as executive producer.

The deep sense we have of time passing from present to past may be nothing more than an illusion. How can our understanding of something so familiar be so wrong? In search of answers, Brian Greene takes us on the ultimate time traveling adventure, hurtling 50 years into the future before stepping into a wormhole to travel back to the past.

Following the cosmologists who are attempting to map the universe, and beyond.

A brief account of the Earth's geological progression, from its creation 4.6 billion years ago to scientists' predictions of its demise more than 2.5 billion years in the future.

A users guide to the cosmos from the big bang to galaxies, stars, planets and moons. Where did it all come from and how does it all fit together. A primer for anyone who has ever looked up at the night sky and wondered.

Hubble Space Telescope is awaiting one final shuttle servicing mission, but why is a telescope worth the risk? Hubble has made numerous discoveries, such as the birth of stars, the death of stars, the existence of black holes, the violence of a comet crash, charting Dark Matter clouds, and discovering 2/3rds of the Universe itself, in the form of mysterious Dark Energy. One day, the Hubble mission will end, and Hubble will burn up in the atmosphere. But a new telescope, the James Webb, will take its place among the stars.

Brian travels the globe to discuss these topics with examples from our planet and others in the universe.

Embark on an astounding journey across 100,000 light-years to witness key moments in the history of the Milky Way. Using cutting-edge science, National Geographic constructs a 3-D state-of-the-art CGI model of our galaxy. Gaze into the heart of the Milky Way on the hunt for super-massive black holes. Witness as stars are born and die. Fly out and above the plane of our galaxy to understand its true shape and scour its dusty spiral arms for the possibility of life.

A journey through space and time.

Travel through the universe to explore the really big questions. Is there life on other planets? Just how big was the Big Bang? What would traveling at "warp speed" really look like? Could wormholes make time travel a reality? Could life on earth survive another huge meteor strike like the one that took out the dinosaurs?

Professor Brian Cox on tour in Australia talks about the life of our universe to scientists and to space-loving audiences.

Hosts Kate Humble and Dr. Hellen Czerski follow Earth's one-year journey around the sun and the extreme effects it can have on our planet's weather.

Welcome to the greatest story that's never been told. In a new, ground breaking series we'll be telling the story of the planets as never before.

The epic story of how the world's continents were created, featuring Professor Iain Stewart.

The ultimate guide to humankind's exploration of our Solar System, told by the passionate explorers who sent spacecraft to every major celestial body yet visited. From the raging inferno of Sun all the way to the icy beauty of Pluto, these are emotional tales of discovery, illustrated with stunning space imagery, often revealing the possibility of life beyond Earth. Discover how, by dodging deadly radiation belts, we now know that beneath Jupiter's swirling clouds lies a ball of spinning liquid metal, or how Saturn's rings were formed at the time of the dinosaurs and are kept stable today by dozens of tiny moons. Marvel at the possibility that we may already have discovered life on Mars in a key experiment carried out in 1976, only for a controversial decision by scientists led them to ignore the result. Learn the amazing story of how we finally made it to the hellish surface of Venus, a feat that has been compared to sending a deep-sea submarine to another planet. These billion dollar missions often took decades to plan and execute, with the very real possibility of failure at any time. There is jeopardy and stress at every turn - entire careers are at stake. In this way, Secrets Of The Solar System is about more than space exploration; these are surprisingly moving human stories featuring many of the world's top space scientists, and they reveal not just wonderful, far away vistas and amazing science, but also the dedication and perseverance needed to explore the Solar System for all humanity.

Nova reviews what scientists have learned in recent years about the sun's behavior and how it works. Most significantly, astronomers are at last beginning to understand the the solar phenomenon that impact our civilization; solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

This is the epic story of the stars, and how discovering their tale has transformed our own understanding of the universe.

Rivalry between Soviet engineer Sergei Korolev and American Wernher von Braun intensifies as the Space Race unfolds, leading up to the historic first Moon landing.

The stories of the men and women who pushed their ingenuity and curiosity beyond the limits to uncover some of the most groundbreaking findings in the history of space exploration.