From History.com:
This show's pretty good -- I'm surprised I didn't see it here before now.

Thanks for posting the information. I had not heard of the show but plan to DVR the remaining episodes.

This is a wonderful series, probably on par with Sagan's Cosmos.

The one thing that kind of bugs me about the show, is that every episode (at least so far) has turned into "101 ways in which the earth could be destroyed." I get that they think it's neat and all that, but I'd rather learn about other planets and the sun without hearing about how many million tons of TNT whatever event would be like if it impacted earth.

At least they're not as overly-enthused about it as they are in MegaDisasters.

Jimminy, you ain't kidding! I was watching the one on Venus and Mercury, and once again, they took a side trek on what would happen if a meteorite the size of the one that created the largest crater on Mercury (and made it buckle up on the opposite side of the impact) hit the Earth.

Is that Luke Skywalker narrating these shows? (Mark Hamill)

Tonight's Saturn episode didn't end with gloom and doom. Nice touch.

I don't know if this is the right place for this question, but here goes: if a meteor hit, or humans killed themselves through war or bacterial agents or however, how long would it take before there was no trace whatsoever of civilization? All steel structures rusted into dust, no roads, all quarries and mines collapsed or eroded to the point where they no longer show signs of human work. And this includes no structures or artifacts hidden under layers of earth, either, waiting for an archaeologist (alien) to dig up. Even those must eventually degrade. Any one have any idea?

Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years, and quite possibly millions, since you're saying no trace of anything man-made can remain to be found. Think about the age of the stonework that's still standing in Egypt, South America or Southeast Asia. The oldest one at Saqqara is coming up on 4700 years old, and it's a long way from eroded into unrecognizibility. The stoneworks in Peru are about the same age. There are stone buildings under the Sea of Japan off Okinawa that may be over 10,000 years old. Given that, how long would it take for the cement footings that support structures like the Golden Gate, the Mackinac, or the George Washington Bridge take to completely crumble? But even that's a drop in the bucket -- The Grotte Chauvet is one of hundreds of natural caverns cut into the limestone cliffs that form the Ardeche Gorge, and it's got paintings and carvings on the walls that have been dated to 32,000 years ago.

Sidenote: I don't think the stone structures in the Sea of Japan are confirmed man-made.

Thanks for the answer, but tens of thousands to millions is quite a big difference. I suppose the answer is unknowable, however, since natural processes of degradation are dependent on so many factors and cannot be predicted. But it is interesting to think that is possible for an intelligent species to have evolved on this planet, say ten million years ago, some fifty million years after the dinosaurs, that advanced to a level as great as our own, but today there remains no evidence whatsoever of it.

I wonder how long it would take all our satellites to either float away or fall back to earth? Or would they stay exactly as they are for billions of years until the Sun engulfs the planet?

I am looking forward to tonight's episode on "Alien Galaxies." I have loved this show so far, but I am very interested to see an episode outside our solar system. Should be great!

I wonder if they'll squeeze in a doomsday scenario involving our impending (in galactic time) collision with Andromeda?

Aww...give me a break. I'm sure it won't be like that. In fact last week's Saturn episode didn't really feature any of that. It was very informative I thought.

Regardless it should be cool to see the further galaxies tonight.

Funny you said that. They did mention a possible collision and even had a closing shot of the Andromeda galaxy looming nearer in the sky. I'm surprised they didn't add some Jaws music as it crept closer and closer...

I do love this series, though.



The narrator's name is Erik Thompson.

I've watched most of the episodes and only one thing really bothers me - and it happened again last night: constant repetition of the same images. I think the collision of the two galaxies was shown at least five times; the rings of Saturn disappeared multiple times; the lightning storms on Venus were shown multiple times.

I understand repetition is a good way to make a point, but seriously - how about a little variation? Some of these images and statements were almost mantra-like and there's more to the planets and the universe than this.

Nebulas ought to be good next week, too, and I'm sure we will again be treated to the death of our own Sun/Star. Multiple times.

I don't think I missed a week, but have they already presented Neptune, Uranus and Pluto? That seems like it could be done or may have already been done in one week.

Well glad you do enjoy the series too.

I found this poll on The History Channel's website about Pluto...they want us to voice our opinion. Should Pluto be a planet still? Fun little debate? What do you guys think?

http://www.history.com/universe/sweepstake...verse-pluto.jsp

Heh. I wonder if the collision will disturb the orbits of the planets?

Oooh. Tomorrow's episode is on the life and death of stars. That seems so interesting...it is crazy to think all over the universe, stars like the sun just burn out one day.

Tonight's episode will be about the outer planets, including Pluto. I guess that explains the poll on their website.

I guess I had never fully grasped why Pluto was downgraded before. Their explaination made sense - although, for tradition's sake, I'd have left it as a planet.....but nobody asked me.

I was fascinated with Uranus (hee, I'm 12) and its smooth featurelessness. I wonder how they can tell how fast it rotates if there are no landmarks to watch for? The sideways rings are awesome, too.

I have to ask: which is the correct pronunciation of Uranus? On last night's ep, they pronounced it "Urine-is". That's the first time I've heard that pronunciation. I always thought it was "Ur-anus", hence the obligatory giggle whenever someone says it.

I loved the beginning of the episode when they did a sinister closeup of the Caltech's guy face "The man. who downgraded. Pluto!"

That guy totally got a villain edit.

I could have done without the obiligatory "if an astronaut went into the depths of Uranus (tee-hee), he would die" speech.

I also think that Neptune and Uranus totally got the short stick. This was a show entitled "The Outer Planets" and they spent half the show talking about how Pluto ain't a planet, and the other half talking about two actual planets. What's with that? You can just say, "The outer planets: Pluto is not a planet. It's a ball of stuff at the edge of the solar system, along with a bunch of other stuff. So, it's not a planet. Next on The Universe, two actual planets."

Next time, SETI. Maybe we'll spend 30 minutes discussing how ET was actually an animatronic and aliens probably won't have pointy ears.

And the next ep features "The Most Dangerous Places". Just what is with the fascination with the doomsday scenarios? My favorite ones have been the ones where the planets are the subjects, and no mention of how life on Earth could be destroyed. For the outer planets, I agree they should have just focused on Neptune and Uranus, and leave Pluto to be covered with objects beyond Neptune's orbit plus the asteroids.

I think the preferred pronunciation is Urine-is, but who hasn't said Ur-anus?

You're not kidding, becca656. It's a problem that all of the new History Channel shows have. I remember during the French Revolution program, the same group of soldiers clad in blue rode up to Versaillies about twenty times. For all the weeks of "on location" shooting they did, they sure didn't get much footage.

What bothers me more is their stupid metaphors. The issue was how stars run out of hydrogen, and their metaphor had something to do with gambling. It wasn't very illuminating, and since it didn't fit all too well it took them quite a while to explain the metaphor. It was like they were in trouble with the mob or something and had to include all this stock footage from Vegas. At other points in the series they've had long digressions about rides at amusement parks and some sort of polynesian (I think?) dance, among others. I mean, we have lots of telescopes, Hubble was up there for a long time, and we've got CGI that's better than ever; why would I want to see a roller coaster and roulette wheel?

I love the series, but at times I feel like it's been produced by Fisher Price.

Did I miss ir or did the Mars episode just pretty much ignore the moons?

Hey, didja hear that the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy are on a collision path? Huh? Didja?

Because they only mentioned it about 40 times.

and we only have to wait 500,000,000 years to watch the fireworks!

Zzingerific I'm glad it's not just me. I hate the metaphors too. Sometimes they are so tortureously created they serve to confuse the subject more than they illuminate it. Sometimes I'm thinking, "Just frickin' tell me the science, instead trying to relate it to playing cards or frickin' Porsches." I really do believe it would be easier to understand if they just pulled out the periodic table or drew the math on the screen. They used Porsche cars in one ep and that one was so poorly done (I have no idea how they were relating them to astronomy, it made no real sense when I watched it). It was that ep that drew my attention to that storytelling device, and I started to notice how ineffective and annoying it was.

Well, no one can complain that they snuck in a gloom-and-doom scenario. The ENTIRE episode was a gloom-and-doom scenario.

Is that the end of the series? It goes out with a 'BANG'?? ;-)

For the record? It appears on Sunday and Monday this weekend (the 2nd and 3rd of September), History Channel will run a marathon of the episodes of this series. I think with the later ones, they've run out of material. This week's is the search for ET - who cares?

So, I've caught most of the episodes of this series during a marathon this weekend, and I kind of feel like they should have called it "The Solar System Plus One Episode About Other Galaxies." I really enjoy specials covering this material, but maybe Carl Sagan spoiled me all those years ago, because this series seems kind of lacking in the personality department. Where's Stephen Hawking popping up to say something witty about what happens in a black hole? It did, however, get me all caught up on Eris and all that new "dwarf planet" stuff from a few years ago.

But I have come to love Neil Tyson, the cheery physicist who's made something of a career out of merrily enumerating all the horrible ways space phenomena could kill you:

"Imagine a light so intense that it, not heat or other radiation, burns off all your skin and you die that way. That's one bad tan."

I always perk up when he's on the screen.

Are you referring to the total number of times or the times in the episode on galaxies? :-D

I've noticed that as well lately, but the worst offender I've seen was on Nova (or a new spin-off of it). This one in particular was about why atom-smashers had to used to combine two atoms to make a new, heavier one which described the repelling forces with rows of little professional mucho libra wrestlers and little nerds interposing themselves between them. TOTALLY made no sense!

Well, the two hour Big Bang Extravaganza finale episode was easily the most interesting of the bunch (at least to me). It made me wish that I had more of an interest in science, or a better understanding of mathematics. Alas.

I was impressed by the "After the Big Bang" special episode.

Holy crap! There's a second season coming out this Tuesday?

Haven't they kind of exhausted the basic topics? They've done all the planets, the Moon, and various doomsday scenarios... can't imagine what they've got for a second season that will hold my attention. Is there a list somewhere?

I was wondering the same thing but my new obsession with Real Housewives is keeping me busy.

According to TV Guide:

I finally watched the premier of season two, and I was pleasantly surprised. As Gharlane noted, the topic was planets orbiting other stars. Apparently, since the mid 90s or so, they've found quite a few, but none that are very much like earth yet.

I was thinking the same thing, becca656, but I was wrong. It amazes me how much new material there is these days. I took astronomy in college about 12 years ago (that makes me feel old!), and everything in this episode dealt with discoveries since then.

This week's about "holes" was interesting. Although, much about the black hole part was covered in the season 1 episode. The bit about them attempting to create mini-black holes at CERN was interesting. And I'd heard the part about the Big Bang possibly being a white hole before. That infinitely massive singularity had to come from somewhere, didn't it?

And... I just fried my brain. Thinking about where the Big Bang came from can do that.



NASA's New Worlds Atlas describes all the known exoplanets found to date. There are 268 known planets at last count.

"Mysteries of the Moon" didn't impress me much last night. I didn't think there was anyone who took the "new moon" syndrome seriously anymore. I was surprised no one gave the obvious reason for more break-ins during a full-moon; you can see better than you could if you did it during a new moon.

In my household, Neil is referred to as "The Whore." Whenever we watch anything at all that has to do with astronomy, there's Neil. Jumping in front of every camera he can find. Media whore.


I know that's not fair -- it's his job. But when you constantly. see. his. face. everywhere.


It gets annoying.

I understand, BasilBee, but I have to say I love Tyson. Isn't he director of the Natural Museum of History? He has a talent for explaining things to lay-people. Science needs more of that.

I love astronomy and science, but this show is becoming annoying to watch. Notice how they cannot show anything for more than 10 seconds before zipping off to an animated sequence or a picture of someone's irrelevant comment. It's like they are afraid people will get bored so they are constantly bombarding you with visual stimuli.

I did not realize until now just how screwed we are in space. The radiation's so bad it makes you see flashes of light? Wow.

Hmm, not so sure about the unsolved mysteries on this week's show.

I have to admit I haven't been keeping up this season. I did like the show on the supernovas, but I have about four episodes to catch up on.



It sounds like a potpourri of subjects. There was some concern that they wouldn't have enough topic areas after season one; have they run out now and are forced to move to the grab-bag stuff?



That bothers me too, but it's not unique to "The Universe." I've noticed the same sort of stuff on other HC shows. What really bugs me is the constant battle reenactments that are shown. They end up showing the same sequences over and over again.

I've noticed that they're now starting to cover secondary and maybe tertiary topics, so yes, I think they're running out of steam.

Did the "Cosmic Collisions" episode air last week (3/4/08)? I missed it and don't see any future airings listed on History Channel's website.