Genetic breakthroughs have shed light on how life evolves in real-time. From filling in the missing links to creating a new species, in the last 50 years scientists have solved some of the biggest mysteries of evolution. In this episode, we look at revolutionary discoveries that shook the world and may shape our future.

Ignited by the power of the atom, burning with light, heat and wrath, stars are anything but peaceful. They collide, devour each other, and explode in enormous supernovas--the biggest explosions in the Universe.

Chris Lintott and Maggie Aderin-Pocock report on the reaction to the dramatic announcement of the discovery of phosphine gas in the clouds of Venus, a gas that could be a sign of life. Venus remains an inhospitable and unlikely host. But if not Venus, where in the solar system is the best place to look for alien life? Chris and Maggie investigate the latest missions to Mars and the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Away from the search for life, Pete Lawrencepreviews the best meteor showers of the year.

In this 2-part special, Professor Brian Cox tackles the biggest story of them all, the story of our Universe. In the first episode, Creation, Brian probes our moment of creation. How did our Universe come into existence? Was there a time before the Big Bang? Do our laws of physics inexorably lead to the existence of us?

Inspired by the Southern Sky as he travels Australia, Brian reveals our very latest understanding about how the Universe began & how it will end.

Four and a half billion years ago, the young Earth was a hellish place, a seething chaos of meteorite impacts, volcanoes belching noxious gases, and lightning flashing through a thin, torrid atmosphere. Then, in a process that has puzzled scientists for decades, life emerged. But how? Join mineralogist Robert Hazen as he journeys around the globe. From an ancient Moroccan market to the Australian Outback, he advances a startling and counterintuitive idea—that the rocks beneath our feet were not only essential to jump-starting life, but that microbial life helped give birth to hundreds of minerals we know and depend on today. It's a theory of the co-evolution of Earth and life that is reshaping the grand-narrative of our planet’s story.