01x06 - The Great Beyond

[bunniefuu]

In every direction...

In every moment...

We are surrounded by wonder.

For thousands of generations,

we have looked up to the night sky...

And dreamt about what might be out there.

Now we are beginning a voyage...

to visit these distant places...

And discover what lies in the great expanse

beyond our home.

High above us,

the International Space Station

orbits the Earth.

Within this tangle of wires and windows

is our first permanent home in the cosmos.

And for the crew who float on board,

it's a whole new way of life.

Here, there is no up or down...

No day or night as we experience on Earth.

It's the ultimate cocoon.

Further out than here,

space travel becomes a
more formidable challenge.

Past the Moon,

only machines have ventured.

But they have captured stunning images

of the beauty that lies beyond.

Saturn...

the jewel of the solar system.

Probes sent here are cloaked

in protective golden blankets...

Keeping them safe

as they survey this majestic giant.

In its orbit...

we've discovered 82 moons.

Its rings stretch 175,000 miles across...

But are typically just 30 feet tall.

With the help of our robotic explorers...

We're getting the first close-up glimpse

of our planetary neighbors...

In all their complexity and beauty.

Only two human-made
craft have ever traveled

past the boundaries of our solar system...

Into the Milky Way
Galaxy that surrounds us.

They carried with them memories

and messages from our world...

Hello from the children of Planet Earth.

Greetings from humanity,

perhaps one day to be discovered.

There are over 100 billion stars...

strewn like dust across
our galactic home...

And we now believe almost all these stars

have planets of their own.

This is TRAPPIST-1...

A small, dim star...

with seven planets in its orbit.

We've detected thousands
of planetary systems

like this one all over the galaxy.

We can't yet see these worlds in detail.

But we can infer what they might be like.



A planet of profound contrasts.

One side of this giant world

is permanently locked,

facing towards its parent star.

Its surface likely molten.

The other side sits in
perpetual darkness...

Landscapes destined

to an eternity without light.

Out there in the galaxy...

Are endless permutations

of texture and form...

Worlds encased in ice...

Planets wrapped entirely in ocean...

Wonders...

waiting to be explored.

Deeper into the Milky Way Galaxy...

we uncover beauty and mystery

on a larger scale.

This the Gum 29 nebula.

At its center is a cluster

of 3,000 newborn stars.

As these bright, young stars burn,

they radiate energy outward...

Sculpting the surrounding gas and dust

into this magnificent sight...

Stretching light-years across...

But this nebula...

is just one among many.

Countless of these stellar nurseries

fill our galaxy...

Each a unique work of art.

The scale of the Milky Way Galaxy

is almost inconceivable.

Traveling at the speed of light,

it would take 100,000 years

to cross from one side of this vast disk

to the other.

But our galaxy is not alone.

Two and a half million light-years away...

Is the Andromeda Galaxy...

A collection of one trillion stars.

We sit within a greater...

grander universe.

We have captured images of galaxies

of every kind...

Scattered across impossible distances.

Every point of light here is not a star...

but a galaxy.

These are places we can see...

But will never reach.

We're only left to imagine the wonders

that might exist out there...

Symphonies written...

Love stories told...

Unimaginable beings...

With unknowable dreams.

Back home...

Our place in this universe...

Tiny...

And magnificent...

A drop...

That has just begun to see the ocean.