Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson takes viewers up from the oceans of Earth, out past the sun and into the vast beyond of what we call space, all as a part of Sunday's inaugural episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.
Cosmos is filled with extraordinary photos of the universe and tales of missions to explore it. To coincide with the show's launch, NASA released a slew of their own amazing images of missions or phenomena that are mentioned on the show, the best of which we've compiled below.
In one hour: Join us as #Cosmos premieres. We'll be sharing more about our images & missions that appear on the show. Follow along.— NASA (@NASA) March 9, 2014
Tyson's show is version 2.0 of the documentary series that astronomer Carl Sagan originally hosted in 1980, and it's meant to educate viewers about the universe and inspire anyone who has ever thought about what's out there beyond our Earth. But just as it's meant to inspire, the program also attempts to convey the importance of science in our daily lives.
Tyson, who has appeared on programs such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, is the Frederick P. Rose director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York, N.Y. Seth MacFarlane, a self-professed space geek who is the creator of Family Guy, is an executive producer of the new Cosmos. The show will run for 13 episodes on Fox, on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET.
"We are all made of star stuff," Tyson intones, quoting Sagan, in episode one of the series. Lucky us.
[nggallery id=15419 layout="list"]