Hubble's Amazing Rescue

The best-known scientific instrument in history was dying. After nearly 20 years in space and hundreds of thousands of spectacular images, the Hubble Space Telescope's gyroscopes and sensors were failing, its batteries running down, and some of its instruments were already dead. The only hope to save Hubble was a mission so dangerous that in 2004 NASA cancelled it because it was considered too risky.

Scientists and the general public alike stubbornly refused to abandon the telescope, and a new NASA administrator revived the mission. This program takes viewers behind the scenes on a riveting journey with the team of astronauts and engineers charged with saving the famous "orbiting observatory" against all odds.

Hunting the Edge of Space, part 2: The Ever Expanding Universe

In this two-hour special, NOVA examines how a simple instrument, the telescope, has fundamentally changed our understanding of our place in the universe. What began as a curiosity—two spectacle lenses held a foot apart—ultimately revolutionized human thought across science, philosophy, and religion. "Hunting the Edge of Space" takes viewers on a global adventure of discovery, dramatizing the innovations in technology and the achievements in science that have marked the rich history of the telescope.

Hour 2, "The Ever-Expanding Universe," introduces a new generation of ever-larger telescopes that is poised to reveal answers to longstanding questions about our universe—and, in turn, to raise new questions.

Hunting the Edge of Space, part 1: The Mystery of the Milky Way

In this two-hour special, NOVA examines how a simple instrument, the telescope, has fundamentally changed our understanding of our place in the universe. What began as a curiosity—two spectacle lenses held a foot apart—ultimately revolutionized human thought across science, philosophy, and religion. "Hunting the Edge of Space" takes viewers on a global adventure of discovery, dramatizing the innovations in technology and the achievements in science that have marked the rich history of the telescope.

Hour 1, "The Mystery of the Milky Way," chronicles the history of telescopes, from Galileo's refractor to Newton's reflector and beyond. It looks at key discoveries, such as those made by William Herschel and his sister Caroline, including the discovery of the planet Uranus. Hour 1 also looks at recent missions: the voyage of the Cassini spacecraft to Saturn, the Kepler telescope's search for planets beyond our solar system, and the Herschel Space Observatory's examination of the Milky Way, which is so large that it would take 100,000 years traveling at the speed of light to cross from one edge to the other.