Cosmos

E1. Standing Up in the Milky Way

The Ship of the Imagination, unfettered by ordinary limits on speed and size, drawn by the music of cosmic harmonies, can take us anywhere in space and time. It has been idling for more than three decades, and yet it has never been overtaken. Its global legacy remains vibrant. Now, it's time once again to set sail for the stars.

★ 8.4

E2. Some of the Things that Molecules Do

Host Neil deGrasse Tyson is on a voyage to explore the relatedness of all living things and the possible evolution of life in the cosmos. Go on a journey to discover how artificial selection turned the wolf into canine breeds and how natural selection sculpted the complex human eye. Later, Tyson visits the grand Hall of Extinction, a monument to all the broken branches on the tree of life. Retrace the story of life on Earth and the unbroken thread that stretches from the first one-celled organisms to human life.

★ 8.4

E3. When Knowledge Conquered Fear

There was a time, not so long ago, when natural events could only be understood as gestures of divine displeasure. We will witness the moment that all changed; but first, the Ship of the Imagination is in the brooding, frigid realm of the Oort Cloud, where a trillion comets wait. Our Ship takes us on a hair-raising ride, chasing a single comet through its million-year plunge towards the Sun.

★ 8.4

E4. A Sky Full of Ghosts

An exploration of how light, time and gravity combine to distort our perceptions of the universe. We eavesdrop on a series of walks along a beach on summer nights in the year 1809. William Herschel, whose many discoveries include the insight that telescopes are time machines, tells bedtime stories to his young son, John, who will grow up to make some rather profound discoveries of his own.

★ 8.4

E5. Hiding in the Light

The Ship of the Imagination travels back in time to reveal 11th century Europe and North Africa during the golden age of Islam, when brilliant physicist Ibn al-Haytham discovered the scientific method and first understood how we see, and how light travels. Later, William Herschel discovers the infrared and the signature hidden in the light of every star, eventually unlocking one of the keys to the cosmos.

★ 8.4

E6. Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still

The Ship of the Imagination ventures on an epic voyage to the bottom of a dewdrop to explore the universe on the smallest scale and observe exotic life forms invisible to the naked eye. Then, host Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the neural network in our brains which determine our sense of smell and memory, and later, he travels deep beneath the surface of the Earth to discover the most mysterious particle we know.

★ 8.4