How did the universe come to be? Thanks to a series of discoveries, our most powerful space missions have unravelled 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution and revealed the story of our universe from its birth all the way to the arrival of our nascent civilization. Our guide on this odyssey back to the dawn of time is light. Telescopes are ti ...me machines - by looking out into the distant universe, they open a window to the past. One telescope more than any other has helped us journey through the history of the universe: NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Remarkably, Hubble has even found one of the first galaxies ever to exist in the universe, which was born some 13.4 billion years ago. It's a discovery that hints at the beginnings of our own Milky Way. Vivid CGI brings this ancient galaxy to life, allowing us to witness for ourselves the first dawn. It was the beginning of a relationship between stars and planets that would, on a faraway world, lead to the origin of life - and ultimately to us. Hubble’s incredible discoveries have allowed scientists to piece together much of our cosmic story, but it cannot take us back to the most important moment in history: the Big Bang. For decades, the moment the universe began was the subject of pure speculation, but by combining astronomy and cosmology, scientists have finally found a way to put their theories to the test and study the momentous events that took place during the Big Bang. They can do this because the European Space Agency’s Planck space telescope has seen the afterglow of the Big Bang itself – something we call the Cosmic Microwave Background. The unparalleled detail Planck gave us has helped confirm something remarkable: the Big Bang may not be the beginning. There was a time before the dawn – a place beyond anything we can comprehend. Professor Brian Cox transports us back to the fraction of a second before the Big Bang, when the seeds of our universe were planted.
Show More
Supermassive black holes are the engines that power our universe and one of the major players in the evolution of galaxies. They're in fact the driving force at the heart of nearly every galaxy in the cosmos. Now, a new mystery has emerged about the oldest supermassive black holes. We see supermassive black holes in the very early universe. A ...nd we don't understand how they grew so large so quickly. We have clues about their formation but, can we solve the mystery of this supermassive growth spurt?
Show More
New York, 1980: three complete strangers accidentally discover that they are identical triplets, separated at birth. The 19-year-olds' joyous reunion catapults them to international fame, but it also unlocks an extraordinary and disturbing secret that goes beyond their own lives - and could transform our understanding of human nature forever. ...Show More
Astronomers make an extraordinary discovery out in deep space when they uncover a cosmic mega-structure that's one billion light-years long. Now, investigators race to decode the hidden forces that shape the most massive and mysterious structure known in the Universe. We dive into this space great wall's fiery birth and hunt for the weir ...d cosmic glue that holds it together to reveal how this megastructure rewrites our understanding of the universe on an epic scale.
Show More
The series explores the incredible universe inside each and every one of us. Through an examination of diverse personal stories from around the world, Human reveals how our everyday lives, our passions, and our goals are powered by the amazing systems that define our biology as a species. The first episode goes on a journey with parents ...who are preparing for new life to see how our bodies create and sustain new life. Through their stories we learn about what is fundamentally shared and absolutely unique about the experience of birth.
Show More
The film reveals the secret story behind one of the greatest intellectual feats of World War II, a feat that gave birth to the digital age. In 1943 Bill Tutte, a 24-year-old maths student and a GPO engineer called Tommy Flowers combined to hack into Hitler's personal super code machine - not Enigma but an even tougher system, which he ca ...lled his 'secrets writer'. Their break turned the Battle of Kursk, powered the D-day landings and orchestrated the end of the conflict in Europe. But it was also to be used during the Cold War - which meant both men's achievements were hushed up and never officially recognised.
Show More
Hubble’s incredible discoveries have allowed scientists to piece together much of our cosmic story, but it cannot take us back to the most important moment in history: the Big Bang. For decades, the moment the universe began was the subject of pure speculation, but by combining astronomy and cosmology, scientists have finally found a way to put their theories to the test and study the momentous events that took place during the Big Bang. They can do this because the European Space Agency’s Planck space telescope has seen the afterglow of the Big Bang itself – something we call the Cosmic Microwave Background. The unparalleled detail Planck gave us has helped confirm something remarkable: the Big Bang may not be the beginning. There was a time before the dawn – a place beyond anything we can comprehend. Professor Brian Cox transports us back to the fraction of a second before the Big Bang, when the seeds of our universe were planted. Show More