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Cosmic Journeys Season 1 Episodes
Season 1 Episode Guide
30 Episodes 2009 - 2015
Episode 1
Birth of the Moon
Mon, Jul 20, 200927 mins
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.
Episode 2
Attack of the Sun
Mon, Jul 27, 200925 mins
Massive solar eruptions take aim at our high-tech society. 93 million miles away... an angry sun vents its rage. Dark regions, called sunspots, appeared unexpectedly on its surface... a sign of rising tension within. It had been three and a half years since the sun last erupted in fury...at the peak of an 11-year cycle of solar flare-ups.
Episode 3
Saturn's Mysterious Moons
Tue, Aug 25, 200925 mins
From the Cassini spacecraft comes one of the greatest photographic collections. Scientists are using it to uncover a trail of clues pointing to the energy sources and complex chemistry needed to spawn life.
Episode 4
Mars: Earth That Never Was
Mon, Dec 21, 200925 mins
Did Mars long ago develop far enough for life to arise? If so, does anything still live somewhere underground? The search for answers has revealed the forces that long ago doomed the Red Planet.
Episode 5
Super Hurricanes
Wed, Aug 12, 2009
Hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones are all the same phenomena that increasingly threaten crowded coastlines. How they form and how they move are examined.
Episode 6
The Largest Black Holes in the Universe
Sun, Sep 27, 200925 mins
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?
Episode 7
How Large Is the Universe
Tue, Oct 20, 200927 mins
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.
Episode 8
When Will Time End
Tue, Nov 10, 200927 mins
How long will the Universe as we know it survive? The answer depends on whether Stephen Hawking's theory about how black holes decay is right. These strange dense objects are like a clock that tick down to a distant moment when all matter and energy will dissipate into the void.
Episode 9
The Incredible Journey of Apollo 12
Wed, Nov 18, 200925 mins
It's the ultimate buddy movie. Pete Conrad and Alan Bean were the second pair of Apollo astronauts to land on the moon. They combined precision with a sense of humor. But it was the rocks they picked up that would define the mission's legacy.
Episode 10
Supermassive Black Hole in the Milky Way Galaxy
Wed, Dec 9, 2009
Starting as an unidentified source of radio interference, Sagittarius A* is given closer scrutiny.
Episode 11
The Search for Earthlike Planets
Fri, Jan 8, 201025 mins
With the launch of the Kepler space telescope, humanity has set out to discover more planets like our own. Will the evidence gathered help shed any light on the ancient question: is the galaxy filled with life, or is Earth just a beautiful, lonely anomaly in space?
Episode 12
Voyage to Pandora
Mon, Feb 8, 201021 mins
Discussing interstellar travel; how to accomplish it, and why it may be necessary to seek out other worlds like the fictional planet Pandora.
Episode 13
Venus: Death of a Planet
Wed, Jun 9, 201025 mins
Long ago, from the fires of our Sun's birth, twin planets emerged: Venus and Earth. Nature draped one world in the greens and blues of life, while enveloping the other in acid clouds, high heat, and volcanic flows. Why did Venus take such a disastrous turn and Earth developed a vibrant biosphere?
Episode 14
The Most Powerful Objects in the Universe
Fri, Sep 10, 201026 mins
What are the energy extremes that define our universe? And how much power can the cosmos wield? Climb a ladder of increasingly powerful events, from frigid gas clouds to nuclear explosions, and travel out to the seething environments of black holes. Find out where Earth fits in the vast power scales of the cosmos.
Episode 15
Is the Universe Infinite?
Tue, Nov 23, 201025 mins
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.
Episode 16
Alien Planets & Eyeball Earths
Mon, Feb 21, 201126 mins
The hunt for planets beyond our solar system has reached a fever pitch. Scientists are beginning to envision what these worlds are like, and in the process, redefining what a planet might need to spawn life.
Episode 17
The Riddle of AntiMatter
Fri, Aug 19, 201125 mins
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?
Episode 18
Mysteries of a Dark Universe
Fri, Oct 14, 201125 mins
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. The scientists who made this discovery were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Episode 19
Crashing Into the Moon
Fri, May 11, 201225 mins
Over the next decade, the United States, Japan, India, China, Russia, and even private companies, are planning to send spacecraft to explore the moon. These missions are looking for resources that may one day allow humans to settle permanently in space.
Episode 20
Birth of a Black Hole
Thu, Nov 29, 201227 mins
Spy satellites first saw these brief but extremely bright flashes of light in the 1960s. For three decades, gamma ray bursts for deep space were one of the persistent mysteries in all of science. It took a revolution in high-energy astronomy to prove that they are the distant birth cries of newborn black holes.
Episode 21
Solar Superstorms
Fri, Feb 15, 2013
The causes and consequences of solar weather.
Episode 22
Voyager: Journey to the Stars
Sun, Apr 7, 201324 mins
The two Voyager spacecraft are part of an ancient quest to push beyond our boundaries... to see what lies beyond the horizon. Now tens of billions of kilometers from Earth, two 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?
Episode 23
Earth in 1000 Years
Fri, Oct 4, 201325 mins
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.
Episode 24
Reinventing Space Flight
Mon, Feb 3, 2014
Looking at the potential of plasma/ion drive for space travel.
Episode 25
Supervolcanoes
Sat, May 24, 2014
A history of super-volcanoes and the effect they have on the environment.
Episode 26
Fate of Antarctica
Mon, Jul 21, 201425 mins
As warming global climates eat away at the ice sheets that cover the continent of Antarctica, researchers are closely studying its impact on the rest of the world. The scientific data being collected suggests that the fate of the world as we know it may be linked to the fate of Antarctica.
Episode 27
Life: Destiny or Chance?
Fri, Sep 19, 201425 mins
Are the universe and its physical laws so fine-tuned that the rise of life is inevitable? Or is life a fluke, a lucky roll of cosmic dice? We look for the answer in the rise of two important components of life, dust and water.
Episode 28
Interstellar Flight
Wed, Oct 29, 201425 mins
Explore the challenges of interstellar flight and the technological possibilities that may one day send us on a long voyage out into the galaxy. What imperatives will define the mission when it launches and finally arrives: exploration and science, or a struggle for survival?
Episode 29
The Age of Hubble
Sat, Dec 13, 2014
This staggeringly visual feast of a documentary Brings cutting-edge findings of modern astronomy to life with state-of-the-art animation, informed by supercomputer simulations of cosmic events. Marvel at the formation of a super-massive black hole 350 million lightyears away; admire the stunning beauty of the Orion nebula; and discover what the stars tell us about our place in the stretch of time and space.
Episode 30
SuperTornado: Anatomy of a MegaDisaster
Sat, Dec 19, 2015
May 22nd, 2011. A powerful tornado cut a mile-wide swath through Joplin, Missouri, the costliest and one of the deadliest tornado disasters ever. What did scientists learn when they peered into the realm of this SuperTornado?