Professor Brian Cox journeys across the vastness of time and space revealing epic moments of sheer drama that changed the universe forever.

Professor Brian Cox journeys across the vastness of time and space revealing epic moments of sheer drama that changed the universe forever.

Ch1. The Sun: God Star
Professor Brian Cox begins his epic exploration of the cosmos, beginning with the great luminous bodies that bring light and warmth to the universe, the stars. Throughout the opening episode, he looks at how stars created life and meaning in the cosmos, from the dawn of time through to the arrival of our own star, the Sun.

Ch2. Alien Worlds: The Search for Second Earth
Professor Brian Cox examines the hunt for extra-terrestrials, which has become a matter of serious scientific inquiry over the last few decades. Vivid animation based on data from the most successful planet hunter of them all, the Kepler space telescope, brings new worlds into view - puffy planets with the density of polystyrene, unstable worlds orbiting two suns and thousand-degree, broiling gas giants with skies whipped into titanic winds.

Ch3. The Milky Way: Island of Light
Professor Brian Cox explores the Milky Way, using data from a cutting-edge space telescope to reveal the dramatic history of Earth's galaxy, and predict its cataclysmic future. The European Space Agency's Gaia Space Telescope painstakingly measures the true position of over a billion stars, producing the most accurate map of the Milky Way ever created, while also measuring their movement, allowing their positions to be tracked back through time.

Ch4. Black Holes: Heart of Darkness
Professor Brian Cox continues his exploration of the universe with a journey into darkness. The centre of the galaxy is home to an invisible monster of unimaginable power - a supermassive black hole named Sagittarius A*. Weighing 4 million times the mass of the Sun, it's an object with such an immense gravitational field that nothing can escape - not even light. For decades, black holes existed purely in the minds of theoretical physicists - the idea was so absurd, scientists thought they couldn't possibly exist in nature. But recent astronomical breakthroughs have confirmed not only that black holes like Sagittarius A* exist, but that these bizarre invisible objects may be the ultimate galactic protagonists.

Ch5. The Big Bang: Before the Dawn
Brian Cox asks how the universe came to be. Throughout the programme, he explores how cutting-edge space missions have revealed the origin of the universe, how discoveries have helped scientists understand how we came to be here and the technology they have used along the way, from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to the European Space Agency's Planck space telescope.

Further Information

BBC

Related Documentaries

The Big Bang Machine
Forces of Nature With Brian Cox
Life of a Universe
A Night with the Stars
Wonders of Life (BBC)
Wonders of the Solar System