Astronomers are closing in on the proof they’ve sought for years that one of the most destructive objects in the universe – a super massive black hole – lurks at the center of our own galaxy. Could it flare up and consume our entire galactic neighborhood?

NOVA takes us on a mind-bending investigation into one of the most bizarre corners of cosmological science: black hole research. From event horizon to singularity, the elusive secrets of supermassive black holes are revealed through stunning computer-generated imagery, including an extraordinary simulation of what it might look like to fall into the belly of such an all-devouring beast.

Space, itself, is falling inside the black hole. It’s rather like a river falling over a waterfall. It’s like that, except it’s space, itself, that’s falling over the cliff. There’s a place where the space starts moving faster than light, so, the light is just trying to get out. It’s rather like a kayaker, trying to make their way upstream, on a river that’s going too fast. They get dragged down to the center of the black hole.

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Out in deepest space lurks a force of almost unimaginable power. Explosions of extraordinary violence, are blasting through the Universe every day. If one ever struck our Solar System it would destroy our Sun and all the planets.

For years no one could work out what was causing these awesome explosions. Now scientists think they have identified the culprit. It’s the most extreme object ever found in the Universe; they have christened it a ‘hypernova’.

Cold War cosmology. The mystery began in 1967. A US military satellite was launched to detect Soviet nuclear tests which the Pentagon believed were secretly taking place on the dark side of the Moon. Instead, the satellite picked up evidence of explosions far bigger than any bomb. Something was emitting bursts of gamma rays – the deadliest form of energy known – on a massive scale. What was worse, these blasts just kept on coming.

Breaking the law. For decades scientists were baffled. Especially disturbing was evidence that these explosions might be coming from the furthest reaches of the Universe, billions of light years away. If this was so, then for us to see them on Earth they had to be on a scale that was beyond our comprehension. According to some, these explosions were so huge that they might even violate the most sacred law in all science: Einstein’s famous equation relating mass and energy, E=mc². That law underpins nothing less than our understanding of how our Universe works.

Live fast, die young. It was not until 1997, when a satellite pinpointed the exact location of these bursts, that scientists began to solve the puzzle. It seems these huge explosions are caused by the death throes of stars twenty times the size of our Sun, which burn themselves out and explode, creating hypernovae. What then unfolded was a chain of events, which would ultimately point towards some of the most exotic wonders in the Universe: stellar nurseries (where new stars are born) and black holes.

Observations show that – instead of fading away, as an explosion might be expected to – radiation continues to emerge from the area of a hypernova. This ongoing emission is characteristic of the process of star birth. Astronomers conclude that the hypernova grows rapidly along with other normal stars in a nursery, but burns out when its contemporaries are still in their infancy.

Pointing to the past. Find a hypernova, therefore, and you have also tracked down a part of space where stellar synthesis is underway. Which is why some scientists now believe that the huge explosions of hypernovae may be the key to unlocking one of the great unsolved mysteries in the Universe: how the first stars were made at the very dawn of time.

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Without the moon, humans wouldn’t exist. Life, if it had started at all, would be in the earliest stages of evolution.

Days would last four hours, winds would blow at hurricane force and there would be a dense and toxic atmosphere resembling that of Venus.

Luckily, 50 million years after the formation of the solar system, our proto-planet was hit by a celestial body more than twice the size of Mars, which formed the moon.

In this one-hour special, viewers will learn what Earth was like before the moon and what Earth would be like if the moon disappeared.

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A stellar explosion, the supernova is the sensational death of a star. It can shine as bright as 100 billion Suns and radiate as much energy as the Sun would emit over 10 billion years.

Jets of high-energy light and matter are propelled into space and can cause massive Gamma Ray Bursts and emit intense X-ray radiation for thousands of years.

Astronomers believe that this process creates the very building blocks of planets, people and plants. Meet the world’s leading Supernova hunters, and take a look at recorded supernovas throughout history.

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Each episode centers around a dramatic question (Will asteroids destroy the Earth? Could a black hole suck up our sun?) that is examined with slick computer-generated eye candy but fairly shallow content–for example, one episode argues that human beings need to colonize other planets because the sun will one day expand and burn the Earth to a cinder, but never mentions that the expansion of the sun won’t happen for millions of years.

Still, Hyperspace does present a variety of exciting ideas and may prompt viewers to learn more. The graphics are beautiful, host Sam Neill projects an engaging intelligence, and you have to love a television show that treats scientists like rock stars. Young science fiction fans will enjoy it enormously. (Excerpt from Amazon.com)

Are We Alone

We’ve all grown up wondering if we are alone in the Universe or if one day we may come face to face with an Alien. This is the story for the search for extraterrestrials. Does ET really exist. Go on a journey to find out. Visit alien planets in search of life. Dive into the oceans of distant moons. On earth Astronomers scan the Universe for alien life and seek out the answer to one of life’s greatest questions. Is there life on other worlds or could it be that we are completely and utterly alone?

Black Holes

Humanity, ignorant in bliss as we go about our life’s unaware that in the depths of space lurks an invisible monsters. Destroyers powerful enough to tear apart our Sun and leave our Earth a shattered burned out ruin You are about to enter the world of the Universe’s ultimate Killer. You will be there when the monster is created in the heart of a dieing star. We will search for it’s tell till signs in the darkness of deep space. This is the story of the power that one day might destroy us all.

Boldly Go

We humans have come along way traveling our world in search of new lands, spreading to ever corner of the globe. But the time has come to look to new destinations, to go once more into the unknown. This is the story of our journey into space. We will fly to the stars on a ship that sails on starlight. We will explore the most distance edges of the cosmos by taking a roller coaster ride through the very fabric of our cosmos. We will discover a machine that has charted the heavens as never before.

New Worlds

The Sun, brilliant, powerful and giver of life. But this is the story of the Sun and how one day the Sun will become our enemy. If we are to survive we will have to leave the Earth. We will need to seek out new homes and amazing new places and change other worlds to recreate the Earth we left behind. In the far future our Sun will become a monster. It will burn all life from our planet and destroy entire worlds and finally our Sun will even destroy itself. It’s going to happen. One day our Sun will die and when it does we will go with it. It’s time to think about the future.

Star Stuff

Lets go on a journey a journey like no other, a journey out into the depth of the Universe. Look up at the night sky, what do you see? The Planets, the Stars, a million points of light. Your looking at your universe. This show will take you there. You will experience first hand the wonders of the universe. Its power and it’s danger and to take a closer look we’ll even bring space down to Earth. Seek out Alien life, witness the birth of new worlds and you’ll discoverer what happens out in space effects all of us here on the one small planet we call our home.

Staying Alive

Take a walk on planet Earth, it’s a wonderful place. But don’t take it for granted because one day it might just vanish, forever. This is the story of the universe we live in and the dangers we face just by being here. We’ll fly with the comets and asteroids witch threaten all life on our planet. Here on Earth we will recreate our Sun’s head long plunge around the galaxy and watch disasters unfold witch can spell the end for us all. Our planet is under threat, our mission is to stay alive.

The Universe is still a place of mystery and wonder. As a cosmologist, I am exhilarated that we can make some progress towards tackling what seem very fundamental questions.

These programs focus on: Was there a beginning? Whether we are alone? What’s the future of the cosmos?

What is the nature of reality? With each advance, new questions come into sharper focus. The key issue is what we still don’t know.

Are We Alone?

Sir Martin explores the possibility that life exists on planets beyond our own. He unveils an unsettling scientific debate that has startling consequences for us Earthlings. Do you believe in aliens? If not, a quick glance through these pages might change your mind!

Why Are We Here?

Everything you thought you knew about the universe is wrong. It’s made of atoms, right? Wrong. Atoms only account for a measly 15% of everything that exists. The mass of the universe consists of something so mysterious and elusive that it has been dubbed ‘dark matter’.

Are We Real?

There is a fundamental chasm in our understanding of ourselves, the universe, and everything. To solve this, Sir Martin takes us on a mind-boggling journey through multiple universes to post-biological life. On the way we learn of the disturbing possibility that we could be the product of someone else’s experiment.

Professor Jim Al Khalili delves into over 50 years of the BBC science archive to tell the story behind the emergence of one of the greatest theories of modern science, the Big Bang.

The remarkable idea that our universe simply began from nothing has not always been accepted with the conviction it is today and, from fiercely disputed leftfield beginnings, took the best part of the 20th century to emerge as the triumphant explanation of how the universe began.

Using curious horn-shaped antennas, U-2 spy planes, satellites and particle accelerators, scientists have slowly pieced together the cosmological jigsaw, and this documentary charts the overwhelming evidence for a universe created by a Big Bang. (Excerpt from bbc.co.uk)

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We journey half a billion miles from the earth’s surface to a mini solar system of over 60 moons rotating around a powerful planet of gas.

Its flowing colors and spots hold strange beauty, but contain violent storms and jet streams.

Could this big, bright ball of turbulent weather have been the star of Bethlehem?

Could one of its moons harbor life beneath its icy crust?

Jupiter, the giant planet, is the king of many questions concerning our solar system and could possibly hold the answers.

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We can’t compare anything on earth to the biggest things known in space. The Lymann Alpha blob is a bubble like structure containing countless galaxies–perhaps the biggest object in the entire universe.

Regions of radio-emitting gas called “radio lobes” could be even bigger. Then there are super galaxy clusters which are hundreds of galaxies merged together due to cosmic collisions.

Discover which is the largest planet, star, star cluster, constellation, black hole, volcano, galaxy, explosions, moon, storm, impact crater and “void” in space.

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A voyage through space and time with Professor Stephen Hawking. The series charts Professor Hawking’s quest for a ‘Theory of Everything’.

This ‘holy grail’ hypothesis could explain everything from the mysteries of unimaginably vast phenomena such as supernovae, black holes and dark matter, to the secrets of an infinitesimally small sub-atomic world.

A portrait of the most famous scientist in the world, Prof Stephen Hawking, and an attempt to explain his work to non-scientific types.

This excellent documentary from Channel 4 does very well to convey the basics of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity in an easy-to-understand manner, as well as to acquaint viewers with Prof Stephen Hawking’s extraordinary life, mission and character. A thoroughly enjoyable, inspiring and enlightening watch!

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