00.00 – 00.48
What are the origins of the Universe? How old is it? Are there any signs of life out there?

00.49 – 02.49
Scientists cannot say why the Universe was created but they can answer questions about how and when it all began. Astronomers have been using telescopes for nearly 400 years. Now there are telescopes that have been propelled into space so that further reaches of the Universe can be explored. However, the Universe is vast and the nearest star is five light years away , that’s 30 million, million miles.

02.50 – 06.16
The Space Shuttle is used to take instruments into space to examine the Universe. Among the most valuable has been the Hubble Telescope named after Edwin Hubble, one of the most celebrated astronomers of the twentieth century. It took ten years to build and was launched from the Shuttle in 1990. Unfortunately, there was a miscalculation while the big mirror was being made and all the images were blurred. In 1993, astronauts returned to space to correct the fault and the revitalised telescope gave amazing views of the Universe. The images from space take millions of years to reach the earth so what we see today are events that took place millions of years ago. In 1996, an experiment called ‘Hubble Deep Field’ began in which the Hubble telescope was manoeuvred to focus on what appeared to be empty spaces in the Universe. The images produced showed more and more distant galaxies further and further back in time – as far back as the Universe in its infancy, 14 billion years ago.

06.17 – 08.59
These pictures provided evidence to support Edwin Hubble’s theory about the Universe. A brief history of Hubble’s early life, his background and his career into astronomy. He wanted to find out the answer to the big question – how large is the Universe?

09.00 – 13.31
Hubble’s main interest was in ‘starry nebulae’, now called galaxies, which he studied from his 100-inch telescope on Mount Wilson in California. The problems of taking photographs of stars in the early days. Hubble photographed more than 500 nebulae. By using stars that changed regularly in brightness, eg Cepheid variable stars, he proved that the Universe was a lot bigger than had been imagined at that time.

13.32 – 16.56
Hubble began looking for variable stars in other galaxies – and found them. They were all moving much further away and this led him to his most amazing discovery – that the Universe was expanding. He could even calculate the age of the Universe itself. His discovery was confirmed by another great scientist, Albert Einstein.

16.57 – 17. 21
Hubble’s ideas of an expanding Universe suggest that it may have been formed initially in some cataclysmic explosion – the ‘Big Bang’. The latest estimate based on Hubble’s original theory suggests that the Big Bang happened about 15 billion years ago.

17.22 – end
The Universe is vast but what are the chances that there is other intelligent life out there? It seems unlikely in our own solar system but recent discoveries suggest it is just possible that there may be intelligent life somewhere out there. Radio astronomers are listening for radio signals from outer space.