Nova, Nova Universe Revealed: Milky Way

PBS Western Reserve (WNEO 45.1 / WEAO 49.1):

Wednesday, July 20, at 9 PM
Thursday, July 21, at 2 AM
Tuesday, July 26, at 5 PM

The Milky Way, an ethereal city of stars straddling the night sky, is a constant reminder of our place in the galaxy we call home. It’s so vast that even traveling at the speed of light, it would take about 100,000 years to cross it. But what shaped this giant spiral of stars, gas, and dust, and what will be its destiny? NOVA explores the wonders of galactic archaeology revealed by Gaia, a spacecraft that’s creating a precise 3D map and measuring the motions of over a billion stars in our galaxy. The results are unlocking the turbulent history of our cosmic neighborhood, from its birth in a whirling disk of clouds and dust to colossal collisions with other galaxies. Travel back in time and witness how one of those collisions injected fresh gas into the Milky Way and gave birth to new generations of stars—possibly including our own sun. And finally, we’ll peer into the future to watch the Milky Way’s ultimate fate as it collides with its nearest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, over 4 billion years from now.