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Program Five: Black Holes and Beyond The invention of radio astronomy over 50 years ago opened new horizons for astronomers. It led to SETI - the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence - looking for stray alien communications. And it also led to astronomical discoveries. Among these were black holes and quasars, bizarre objects billions of light years away, the same size as our solar system, with a power output greater than all of the stars in our galaxy put together. Quasars shine incredibly brightly as matter is sucked into a black hole and heats up due to friction. The science of black holes has thrown up some bizarre possibilities, since physics as we know it breaks down inside black holes. The mathematics of this seem to allow instant travel millions of miles across space, or even time travel. Whatever is really true, black holes are a lesson to scientists.
Program Six: An Answer to Everything Over the last hundred years our understanding of the universe has advanced farther than in previous centuries. We now know the universe had a beginning and how all the matter formed, but there is still one outstanding question - how did the Big Bang begin? Stephen Hawking is joined by other leading scientists as they try to answer this most important question.