
Understanding the Universe
The scale of the cosmos, from the solar system out past the Milky Way, is the subject here, and Discovery built the hour around big visual set pieces rather than a single argument. Candice Bergen narrates as astronomers and astrophysicists walk through the largest telescopes on Earth and close-up Hubble Space Telescope images of the sun, nebulas, and supernovas. A segment on radio astronomy has scientists listening by satellite for the faint microwave echo left over from the Big Bang, and another explains how the redshift measured in distant starlight changed estimates of the universe's age. Graphic models and computer animation stand in for the physics that cameras cannot otherwise show, including a detour to the set of Star Trek: Voyager to ask, half seriously, whether a black hole could work as a wormhole to somewhere else. The tone stays accessible throughout, aimed at explaining rather than debating, with each topic given just enough time to make the underlying idea clear before moving to the next.