Cosmos: Possible Worlds

Viewers are invited on an adventure spanning billions of years into the evolution of life and consciousness. Visit a 100,000-year-old laboratory and examine the change in lifestyle that radically altered human existence and the life of the heretic who found God in the book of nature, which opened our way to the stars.

There is no refuge from change in the cosmos. There will come a time in the life of the sun when Earth will no longer be a home for us. Explore the story of our ancestors who rose to a comparable challenge, as well as a long-term vision of our future on other worlds.

Discover a new vision of genesis at the bottom of the blood-red sea of the infant Earth and the story of the man who found the first clues to life's beginnings in a green jewel. As he searched for the origins of life, he risked his own, daring to toy with his Nazi tormentors.

In the first half of the 20th century, pioneering geneticist Nikolai Vavilov traveled five continents to assemble a treasury of the world's seeds. He dreamed that science could be the means to end hunger, and his refusal to tell a scientific lie cost him his life. Witness the heroism of his colleagues and its impact on our lives in one of the most stirring stories in the history of science.

Embark on a voyage of discovery through the evolution of consciousness with stops in ancient Greece and a visit to the largest life-form on Earth. This journey takes us into the poignant dream of an abandoned orphan who opened the way to our understanding of the architecture of thought and introduced a vision of a galactic network of thought.

A child lies on the rug of a tenement, dreaming of interstellar adventures. At the dawn of the Space Age, a young Carl Sagan's career is forged in the clash of his mentors: two scientific titans. Sagan goes on to realize his childhood dreams, carrying their research forward and communicating its significance to the whole world.

A hidden underground network — a collaboration of four kingdoms of life — is revealed. Explore a true first-contact story between humans and beings who communicate with a symbolic language and have maintained a representative democracy for tens of millions of years.

A mysterious untold story is brought to life: A scientist figures out how to go to the moon while fighting for his life in a World War I trench. He writes a letter addressed to readers 50 years in the future, making the Apollo missions possible. Witness the 20-year-long odyssey of a robotic explorer ordered to self-destruct on another world.

In the counterintuitive realm of quantum mechanics, light can be two contradictory things, and somehow - no one knows how - an unseen observer can alter the nature of reality. Meet the man who stumbled upon this hole in reality and the still-unfolding technological revolution that it made possible.

Two atoms from different parts of the universe meet on a small planet. Examine how a deadly embrace between science and state altered the fate of the world and behold a gripping cautionary tale of others who grew used to living in the shadow of grave danger until it killed them all … except for one.

From the birth of the devil in ancient Persia, where a beloved family dog becomes a seething beast, to a searing story of saintliness among macaque monkeys, join an exploration into the human potential for change. One of history's greatest monsters is transformed into one of its shining lights.

In what kind of world can a child born in 2020 expect to grow up? When did our slide into planetwide environmental destruction begin? Enter the possible world that awaits a 2020 baby in her twenties: one darkened by our refusal to confront the real and mounting challenges we face but one that still offers a message of hope.

Young Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson first discovered their passion for science at the New York World's Fairs of the past. Visit the dazzling pavilions of the 2039 New York World's Fair, where problems currently considered intractable may have been solved through public commitment and scientific imagination. A child's journey comes full circle, presenting a future bright with possibilities.