Nova (TV Series)

The earthquake that hit the northern coast of Japan on March 11, 2011, was recorded at magnitude 9.0 the worst ever recorded in Japan. It generated an unprecedented tsunami, obliterating coastal villages and towns in a matter of minutes. In some areas, the tsunami climbed above 100 feet in height and traveled miles inland. Amazingly, amateur and professional photographers captured it all on video, including remarkable tales of human survival, as ordinary citizens became heroes in a drama they never could have imagined. As the waves rush in, a daughter struggles to help her elderly mother ascend their rooftop to safety; a man climbs onto an overpass just as the wave overtakes his car. These never-before-seen stories are captured in video and retold after the fact by the survivors who reveal what they were thinking as they made their life-saving decisions. Their stories provide lessons for how we should all act in the face of life-threatening disasters.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11, NOVA presents an epic story of engineering, innovation, and the perseverance of the human spirit. With extraordinary access granted by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, “Engineering Ground Zero” follows the five-year construction of One World Trade Center (1 WTC) and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum..

Where do nature’s building blocks, called the elements, come from? They’re the hidden ingredients of everything in our world, from the carbon in our bodies to the metals in our smartphones. To unlock their secrets, David Pogue, the lively host of NOVA’s popular "Making Stuff" series and technology correspondent of The New York Times, spins viewers through the world of weird, extreme chemistry: the strongest acids, the deadliest poisons, the universe’s most abundant elements, and the rarest of the rare—substances cooked up in atom smashers that flicker into existence for only fractions of a second.

It contains 99.9 percent of all the matter in our solar system and sheds hot plasma at nearly a million miles an hour. The temperature at its core is a staggering 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. It convulses, it blazes, it sings. You know it as the sun. Scientists know it as one of the most amazing physics laboratories in the universe. Now, with the help of new spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes, scientists are seeing the sun as they never have before and even recreating what happens at its very center in labs here on Earth. Their work will help us understand aspects of the sun that have puzzled scientists for decades. But more critically, it may help us predict and track solar storms that have the power to zap our power grid, shut down telecommunications, and ground global air travel for days, weeks, or even longer. Such storms have happened before—but never in the modern era of satellite communication. "Secrets of the Sun" reveals a bright new dawn in our understanding of our nearest star—one that might help keep our planet from going dark.

Astronauts and engineers of Apollo 8 explain the inside story of the first mission to circumnavigate the moon. The Apollo astronauts and engineers share the inside story of Apollo 8, which was the first crewed spacecraft to successfully orbit the Moon and return to Earth. The U.S. space program suffered a bitter setback when Apollo 1 ended in a deadly fire during a pre-launch run-through. In disarray, and threatened by the prospect of a Soviet Union victory in the space race, NASA decided upon a radical and risky change of plan: turn Apollo 8 from an earth-orbit mission into a daring sprint to the moon while relying on untried new technologies. Fifty years after the historic mission, the Apollo 8 astronauts and engineers recount the feats of engineering that paved the way to the moon.

Brian Greene explores the weirdness of quantum physics, which governs the universe on the tiniest of scales. While counterintuitive, it's one of the most successful theories in the history of science.

Witness the extraordinary surgery that will allow twin girls, born joined at the head, to live separate lives. Bangladeshi conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna appear in this program validating that they have beaten the odds with their miracle story of survival, both awaking from landmark separation surgery. The twins, who were abandoned shortly after birth at an orphanage in Bangladesh, they had little chance of survival, until the twins were separated by a 16-member medical team from the 32-hour marathon surgery at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne Australia. Since the beginning, surgeons knew there was no guarantee of survival for either of the girls—but without surgery there was no hope at all. With exclusive access to this extraordinary human and medical drama, Nova's cameras have been with Trishna and Krishna and their caregivers at each moment of their journey.

The effort to locate life elsewhere in the universe is examined. It's a difficult task due to the many planets that could theoretically support life. Nova takes a spectacular trip to distant realms of our solar system to discover where secret forms of life may lie hidden. Combining the latest telescope images with dazzling animation, this program immerses audiences in the sights and sounds of alien worlds, while top astrobiologists explain how these places are changing how we think about the potential for life in our solar system. We used to think our neighboring planets and moons were dormant, lifeless rocks where life could never take hold. Today, however, the solar system looks wilder than we ever imagined.

An investigation uncovers the human failures and design flaws behind the 2003 Columbia tragedy. An in-depth look at the Columbia space shuttle disaster in 2003. Nova includes interviews with shuttle astronauts, family members, flight control personnel, administrators and investigators. Also included is a brief history of the space shuttle program.

The story of British aerial military photographic reconnaissance and analysis using stereoscopic viewing techniques during World War II. During World War II, Hitler’s scientists developed terrifying new weapons of mass destruction. Alarmed by rumors of advanced rockets and missiles, Allied intelligence recruited a team of brilliant minds from British universities and Hollywood studios to a country house near London. Here, they secretly pored over millions of air photos shot at great risk over German territory by specially converted, high-flying Spitfires. Peering at the photos through 3D stereoscopes, the team spotted telltale clues that revealed hidden Nazi rocket bases. The photos led to devastating Allied bombing raids that dealt crucial setbacks to the German rocket program and helped ensure the success of the D-Day landings. With 3D graphics that recreate exactly what the photo spies saw, NOVA tells the suspenseful, previously untold story of air photo intelligence that played a vital role in defeating the Nazis.

What do dinosaurs, a panda's thumb and a peacock's tail have in common? Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, the internationally renowned paleontologist and Evolutionary theorist, provides some surprising answers in this NOVA profile.

Memory is the key to our identity. Its the glue that binds our mental lives. Without it, humans would be prisoners of the present, unable to use the lessons of the past to change our future. From our first kiss to where we put our keys, memory represents who we are, how we learn and how we navigate the world. But how does it actually work? In MEMORY HACKERS, NOVA explores the cutting edge frontiers of cognitive Science and molecular biology, where neuroscientists are probing our brains to unlock the secrets of human memory. The one-hour documentary, examines how memories are formed, what encompasses the act of remembering and the new technologies being used to implant, edit and even erase memories, a process that could DELETE our worst fears and, one day, may help us to re-write our past with the flip of a switch. Washington University research on Jake Hausler, a St. Louis child with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, and Actress/author Marilu Henner who has a Superior Autobiographical Memory are featured on this hour of NOVA.

A powerful partnership between science and scholarship breaks exciting new ground in investigating the origins of the ancient Israelite's, their faith in a single, omnipotent God and the creation of the Bible. “The Bible’s Buried Secrets,” produced by Rhode Island-based Providence Pictures for PBS's science series Nova, attempts to uncover who wrote the Hebrew Bible and whether it’s history or parable, delving into the origins of the Israelite's to explore their gradual transformation into a monotheistic people. The show also poses provocative ideas – including the “revelation” that many Israelite's believed that God had a wife – and disputes literal readings of the text.