Nova

The Mystery of the Milky Way: How telescopes have expanded our view of the universe

Hunting the Edge of Space: Part 1

Get up close with today’s most powerful telescopes.  11/28/2012

Airs Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT.  Check your local listings.

Hunting the Edge of Space: Mystery of the Milky Way Preview

the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

NOVA Science Trust Logo

<div class="rich-text"><p>(Program not available for streaming.) Hour 1, "The Mystery of the Milky Way," chronicles the history of telescopes, from Galileo's refractor to Newton's reflector and beyond. It looks at key discoveries, such as those made by William Herschel and his sister Caroline, including the discovery of the planet Uranus. Hour 1 also looks at recent missions: the voyage of the Cassini spacecraft to Saturn, the Kepler telescope's search for planets beyond our solar system, and the Herschel Space Observatory's examination of the Milky Way, which is so large that it would take 100,000 years traveling at the speed of light to cross from one edge to the other. </p>
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The Mystery of the Milky Way: From Galileo's to today's, telescopes have opened grand vistas onto our galaxy and beyond.

Johns Hopkins University

Oxford University

Amateur Astronomer

Cfa | Harvard & Smithsonian

University of California, Berkeley

Carnegie Observatories

Cambridge University

NASA Herschel Science Center

Space Telescope Science Institute

Author, <em>Is God a Mathematician?</em>

AURA

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Nobel Laureate in Physics

Apache Point Observatory

University of Chicago

University of Utrecht

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

<div class="rich-text">The Mystery of the Milky Way: From Galileo's to today's, telescopes have opened grand vistas onto our galaxy and beyond.</div>

Hunting the Edge of Space: Hr 1

Space & Flight

The Ever-Expanding Universe: How telescopes have expanded our view of the universe

Hunting the Edge of Space: Part 2

Investigate the universe’s distant past, and dark matter and dark energy — the unsolved mysteries of the cosmos. 12/5/2012

Airs Wednesday, December 5, 2012 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT.  Check your local listings

Hunting the Edge of Space, Part 2 - Pre

<div class="rich-text"><p>(Program not available for streaming.) In "The Ever-Expanding Universe," Hour 2 of the two-part special "Hunting the Edge of Space," NOVA investigates a battery of high-tech telescopes that is joining the Hubble Space Telescope on its quest to unlock the secrets of our universe, a cosmos almost incomprehensible in its size, age, and violence.</p>
<p>Far beyond our solar system, we are now discovering exoplanets orbiting other suns, and beyond our galaxy, another hundred billion galaxies, such as Andromeda, Sombrero, and Whirlpool, each harboring hundreds of billions of stars. We've detected supermassive black holes, spinning violently at the very centers of galaxies, including our own. We've witnessed supernovas: exploding stars, millions of light-years away, spewing out superheated gas at 600,000 miles per hour. And deep inside clouds of gas and dust, billowing trillions of miles high, we can glimpse new stars being born. Now, the latest telescopes are revealing the invisible mysteries of space that we are only just beginning to understand: dark matter, the hidden scaffolding our entire cosmos is built on; and dark energy, a powerful and invisible force that is pushing our universe apart. </p>
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The Ever-Expanding Universe: Huge new telescopes are poised to penetrate the enigmas of dark matter and dark energy.

20 years old

25 years old

Westmont High School

Ayehu's friend

Physicist: von Braun Team

Archeologist

Environmentalist and Author

17 years old

Collavino Construction

Underwater Archeologist

University of California, Santa Cruz

MOL Crew Member

StarClimber

Military Historian

<div class="rich-text">The Ever-Expanding Universe: Huge new telescopes are poised to penetrate the enigmas of dark matter and dark energy.</div>

Hunting the Edge of Space: Hr 2

<p></p><p>(Programs not available for streaming.) In this two-hour special, NOVA examines how a simple instrument, the telescope, has fundamentally changed our understanding of our place in the universe. What began as a curiosity—two spectacle lenses held a foot apart—ultimately revolutionized human thought across science, philosophy, and religion. "Hunting the Edge of Space" takes viewers on a global adventure of discovery, dramatizing the innovations in technology and the achievements in science that have marked the rich history of the telescope.</p>

How telescopes have expanded our view of the universe

<p>How telescopes have expanded our view of the universe</p>

Hunting the Edge of Space Episodes

Hunting the Edge of Space: Hr 1

Hunting the Edge of Space: Hr 2