Secrets of the Universe: How We Discovered the Cosmos

World-renowned astronomer Paul Murdin tells the stories of key astronomical discoveries.

How did our universe come to exist? Why do stars shine? Is there life beyond the Earth?

For millennia, humans have looked to the celestial sphere to explain the cosmos, first recording the movements of the Moon 25,000 years ago. Since the Enlightenment and the dawn of the space age, scientists have been unravelling cosmic mysteries, and raising astonishing new questions for future generations to answer. Today we live in an age of unprecedented astronomical revelation, from the discovery of water on Marsto the detection of gravitational waves and the first photograph of a black hole.