A Reassuring Fable • 1989 • episode "3/10" • The Sagan Series

12:00

Today Phil explains how telescopes work and offers up some astronomical shopping advice.

#6 • Crash Course Astronomy • Astronomy

112:26

Black holes are the most enigmatic and exotic objects in the universe. They’re also the most powerful; with gravity so strong it can trap light. And they’re destructive, swallowing entire planets, even giant stars. Anything that falls into them vanishes…gone forever. Now, astrophysicists are realizing that black holes may be essential to how our universe evolved—their influence possibly leading to life on Earth and, ultimately, us. In this two-hour special, astrophysicist and author Janna Levin takes viewers on a journey to the frontiers of black hole science. Along the way, we meet leading astronomers and physicists on the verge of finding new answers to provocative questions about these shadowy monsters: Where do they come from? What’s inside? What happens if you fall into one? And what can they tell us about the nature of space, time, and gravity?

NOVA PBS • 2018 • Astronomy

53:09

In summer 1969, Apollo 11 succeeded as the first manned mission to land on the moon. The next challenge was to design and build the first exploration vehicle. It had to allow astronauts to explore the moon's surface, but it had to fit in just a meter square space!

15 • Cosmic Front • 2014 • Astronomy

52:17

While much of the information on our universe that we have acquired through studying the stars ultimately leads to more questions, this program accurately conveys what information we've learned since we began using Hubble and other super telescopes to explore distant regions of space.

2016 • Astronomy

42:29

The latest NASA missions to Mars might finally reveal if it is home to alien life, and using these brand-new discoveries, experts are rethinking everything they know about the Red Planet.

Space's Deepest Secrets • 2019 • Astronomy

61:14

The episode, devoted to the planet Mars, begins with scientific and fictional speculation about the Red Planet during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, Edgar Rice Burroughs' science fiction books, and Percival Lowell's false vision of canals on Mars). It then moves to Robert Goddard's early experiments in rocket-building, inspired by reading science fiction, and the work by Mars probes, including the Viking, searching for life on Mars. The episode ends with the possibility of the terraforming and colonization of Mars and a Cosmos Update on the relevance of Mars' environment to Earth's and the possibility of a manned mission to Mars.

5/13 • Cosmos: A Personal Voyage • 1980 • Astronomy