Does the universe, have a limit? Does the universe have an edge? Looking out to the edge of the universe is tremendously important to understand our place in the cosmos and to understand the universe itself. Inflation was a formative moment for our universe. By the time it stopped, the universe's basic characteristics were set. There could be regions of the greater universe where inflation didn't stop then. Occasionally a little region will stop inflating and just expand at the normal rate. We could imagine a super large-scale structure where there's different regions of the universe, domains, and each domain has different local constants and laws of physics.
The episode, devoted to the planet Mars, begins with scientific and fictional speculation about the Red Planet during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, Edgar Rice Burroughs' science fiction books, and Percival Lowell's false vision of canals on Mars). It then moves to Robert Goddard's early experiments in rocket-building, inspired by reading science fiction, and the work by Mars probes, including the Viking, searching for life on Mars. The episode ends with the possibility of the terraforming and colonization of Mars and a Cosmos Update on the relevance of Mars' environment to Earth's and the possibility of a manned mission to Mars.
The idea of intelligence is explored in the concepts of computers (using bits as their basic units of information), whales (in their songs and their disruptions by human activities), DNA, the human brain (the evolution of the brain stem, frontal lobes, neurons, cerebral hemispheres, and corpus callosum under the Triune Brain Model), and man-made structures for collective intelligence (cities, libraries, books, computers, and satellites). The episode ends with speculation on alien intelligence and the information conveyed on the Voyager Golden Record.
The Universe as we know it is condemned to death. Space, matter and even time will one day cease to exist and there's nothing we can do about it. Harsh realities are revealed about the future of our Universe; it may collapse and burn or it might be gripped by a galactic ice age. Either of these scenarios might be a long way off. However, our Universe could suddenly be destroyed by a "random quantum fluctuation", a bubble of destruction that can obliterate the entire cosmos in the blink of an eye. No matter how it ends, life in our Universe is doomed.
Could we be unique in the universe or is there another planet similar to earth somewhere in the cosmos? Is it possible that Alpha Centauri, our nearest star, is home to another earth-like planet? Earth sized planets have been hard to find, but indirect methods are coming on line to give scientists a good survey of how many such bodies may be in the universe. How rare would it be to find life on another earth-like planet?
Inflation was a formative moment for our universe. By the time it stopped, the universe's basic characteristics were set. There could be regions of the greater universe where inflation didn't stop then. Occasionally a little region will stop inflating and just expand at the normal rate. We could imagine a super large-scale structure where there's different regions of the universe, domains, and each domain has different local constants and laws of physics.