Cosmic Front

About a decade ago, a mysterious bronze disk with astronomical markings was discovered in Germany. It's 30 centimeters in diameter and 5 centimeter thick and is inlaid with gold decorations of the sun, the moon and stars. Named the Nebra Sky Disc after the place where it was found, this disk is surprisingly old. Studies suggest it was made some 3,600 years ago. Furthermore, the latest scientific analyses of the designs embossed into it revealed the amazing astronomical knowledge of ancient people. The hidden mysteries of the world's oldest known astronomical device are now coming to light.

Could Mars have ever harbored life? Thanks to NASA's latest Mars rover Curiosity, scientists are finding clues to this profound question since the rover made an extraordinary landing on the red planet in August 2012. For the first time in Mars exploration, Curiosity drilled into Martian rocks and investigated the subsurface chemistry in detail. It turned out that underneath the highly oxidized red surface was "grey Mars" material determined to have life-supporting potential. This program tracks the first year of Curiosity's adventure, and confirms an ancient environment to support life on Mars.

The Orion Nebula is a beautiful sight in the night sky. One of the visionaries behind the Hubble Space Telescope, Dr. Robert O'Dell, has been studying Orion for more than 50 years. When he and his team focused Hubble on Orion, they discovered that the nebula is a giant stellar nursery giving birth to new stars and planets. Their groundbreaking research also revealed the three-dimensional shape of the nebula and the actual location where stars are formed. Based on this research, a dynamic CGI reconstruction of the Orion Nebula takes us on an exciting adventure deep inside this stellar nursery to witness stars and planets dramatically bursting into existence.

The terraforming of Mars is the process by which man would transform the barren land of Mars into a new, Earth-like planet capable of sustaining life. According to Dr. McKay of the NASA Ames Research Center, this could become reality as early as 100 years from now. Artificial microorganisms created with the latest techniques in synthetic biology would be used to produce resources such as iron, energy, and food directly on the planet itself. This episode of COSMIC FRONT reveals the details of this megaproject by using images created based on the most up-to-date potential scenarios.

Collecting meteorites is a current craze among celebrities in the West. Some meteorites are even bought and sold for investment purposes at hundreds of thousands of dollars. Meteorite hunters are the ones behind this craze. Seeking to get rich quick, they scour the earth, from Antarctica to the Sahara desert, for pieces of space rock. This episode follows the work of world-renowned meteorite hunters and takes a look at the front lines of the meteorite business. It also reveals the recently discovered and amazing truth regarding the relationship between meteorites and the presence of life on planet earth.