Seasons & episodes

NOVA visits Neptune, the planet that took Voyager 12 years to reach. Mysteries abound in and around this big, blue world at the outer limits of the solar system. Actor Patrick Stewart hosts.

NOVA chronicles the Voyager space mission—from Earth to the ends of the solar system. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and dozens of moons star in this epic voyage of exploration. Actor Patrick Stewart hosts.

Sixty-five years after attempts to ban them, chemical weapons pose more of a threat than ever. NOVA looks at the problem of controlling substances that are easily produced and cruelly effective.

NOVA examines the troubled past and promising future of blimps, zeppelins, cyclocranes and other species of airships. There's life in the old gasbags yet.

NOVA looks at the high-stakes quest to predict earthquakes. Despite past disappointments, geologists still hope to divine the clues that precede nature's ultimate upheavals.

Robotic weapons that seek out and destroy ships, planes, and other targets are the wave of the future. NOVA questions whether their proliferation may spell an end to superpower invincibility.

Is the ivory ban in the elephant's best interest? NOVA looks at the controversial strategies to save the world's largest land animal from extinction.

Ever wonder how junk mail finds you? NOVA investigates the hidden world of direct marketing, pointing out how advertisers know a lot more about us than we think.

NOVA profiles the llama, alpaca, vicuna and guanaco of South America. At one time nearly extinct, these four members of the camel family are exceptionally well adapted to life in the beautiful high Andes.

NOVA tracks a mysterious disease that suddenly and fatally attacks the children of a small Brazilian town. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta are called in to crack the case.

NOVA returns to Mount St. Helens a decade after its cataclysmic eruption to learn how nature is recovering from the disaster.

An experiment that could mean limitless supplies of energy sets the scientific world on its head. NOVA covers the cold fusion controversy.

NOVA covers the most elaborate expedition ever undertaken in the search for dinosaurs—to China's Gobi desert. Paleontologists brave sandstorms, heat and worse to find their fossils.

Are dinosaurs still among us? NOVA looks at the contentious question of whether present-day birds are dinosaurs. Over the years, new fossil discoveries keep amending the answer.

Tyrannosaurus rex, the terrifying kind of the dinos, recently turned up in a nearly complete skeleton in Montana. NOVA follows the dig to extract the bones and looks at the science and lore of dinosaurs in general.

In the first program of a three-part miniseries on the Soviet space program, NOVA profiles the mysterious genius behind the world's first satellite, the first man to orbit the earth and other early Russian triumphs in space.

NOVA reveals the details of Moscow's secret plan to reach the moon ahead of the Americans. Was Neil Armstrong's "giant leap for mankind" almost upstaged?

In an unprecedented insider's look, NOVA covers the training, flight and recovery of a cosmonaut crew that visits the Soviet space station Mir. Unexpected emergencies show that space travel is still far from routine.

Gregory Peck narrates a scientific voyage around Vancouver Island in search of whales. Humpbacks, Killers, Grays and other whale species make their appearance in spectacular, never-before-seen footage both above and below the waves.

Will machines be able to beat us at our own game? The computer chess champ matches wits with the human world titleholder.

NOVA covers the causes and attempted cures of baldness. Some men take pride in their bald heads; others will go to great lengths to cover up. Alan "Douglas Brackman" Rachins of NBC's LA Law hosts.

In a two-hour special, NOVA follows seven aspiring doctors through four years of medical school. The first examination, the anatomy lab, the first death, the first baby-it's all part of becoming a doctor. Neil Patrick Harris, star of ABC's Doogie Howser, MD hosts. (Follow-up to the program 1521 "Can We Make a Better Doctor?")

Forty years after they were discovered, the Dead Sea Scrolls have yet to be published in their entirety. NOVA looks at the laborious-some say scandalous-process of compiling and releasing this religious treasure.

S18 · E14Suicide Mission to Chernobyl 1991-10-22 · 55 min＋

NOVA accompanies Soviet scientists on a deadly mission inside the sarcophagus-the massive structure that entombs the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Will there be another deadly explosion?