Host Carl Sagan takes viewers to the edge of the universe aboard the spaceship of the imagination in this 13-part series. Through beautiful special effects, viewers witness quasars, exploding galaxies, star clusters, supernovas, and pulsars. Returning to the solar system, viewers enter an astonishing recreation of the Alexandrian Library, seat of learning on Earth 2000 years ago.

In episode 2, Dr. Carl Sagan's cosmic calendar makes the 15-billion year history of the universe understandable and frames the origin of the Earth and the evolution of life from microbes to humans. An understanding of how life developed on Earth enables imaginative speculations on what forms life might take elsewhere in the cosmos. Episode 3 includes a historical re-creation of the life of Johannes Kepler -- the last scientific astrologer, the first modern astronomer, and the author of the first science fiction novel. Kepler provided the insight into how the moon and the planets move in their orbits and ultimately how to journey to them.

Episode 4 features a descent through the hellish atmosphere of Venus to explore its broiling surface, serving as a warning for our world about the possible consequences of the increasing greenhouse effect. Then Dr. Sagan leads viewers on a tour of the Solar System to see how other heavenly bodies have suffered various cosmic catastrophes. Episode 5 asks "Is there life on Mars?" Dr. Sagan takes viewers on a never-before-seen look at the red planet through the eyes of science fiction authors and then through the unblinking eyes of two Viking spacecrafts that have sent thousands of pictures of the stunning Martian landscape back to Earth since 1976.

Episode 6 shows the exhilaration of the 17th Century Dutch explorers who ventured in sailing ships halfway around our planet in their quest for wealth and knowledge and compares that to the excitement of Voyager's expeditions to Jupiter and Saturn. The newly acquired treasures of our present golden age of exploration are the focus of this episode. Episode 7 tells how humans once thought the stars were campfires in the sky and the Milky Way "The Backbone of the Night." In this fascinating segment, Dr. Carl Sagan takes viewers back to ancient Greece when the right answer to such a basic question as "What are the stars?" was first glimpsed. He visits the Brooklyn elementary school of his childhood where this same question is still being asked.

Episode 8 is a startling voyage to see how star patterns change over millions of years, followed by a journey to the planets of other stars, and a look at the possibility of time travel -- which takes viewers to Italy, where the young Albert Einstein first wondered what it would be like to ride on a beam of light. Episode 9 uses computer animation and amazing astronomical art to show how stars are born, live, die, and sometimes collapse to form neutron stars or black holes. Viewers then journey into the future to witness "the last perfect day on Earth," 5-billion years from now, after which the Sun will engulf our planet in the fires of its death throes.

In episode 10, Dr. Sagan leads viewers on awesome trips -- to a time when galaxies were beginning to form, to India to explore the infinite cycles of Hindu cosmology, and to show how humans of this century discovered the expanding universe and its origin in the Big Bang. He disappears down a black hole and reappears in New Mexico to show viewers an array of seventeen telescopes probing the furthest reaches of space. In episode 11, the brain is the focus as Dr. Sagan examines another of the intelligent creatures with whom we share the planet earth -- the whales. Viewers wind through the maze of the human brain to witness the architecture of thought. We see how genes, brains, and books store the information necessary for human survival.

Episode 12 posits whether there are alien intelligences, and whether we could communicate with them. And what about UFOs? The answers to these questions take viewers on a journey to Egypt to decode ancient hieroglyphics, to the largest radio telescope on Earth, and, in the spaceship of the imagination, to visit other civilizations in space. Dr. Sagan answers such questions as: "What is the lifespan of a planetary civilization?" "Will we one day hook up with a network of civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy?" Through the use of startling special effects, episode 13 retraces our 15-billion year journey from the Big Bang to the present. The tragic story of the martyrdom of Hypatia, the woman scientist of ancient Alexandria, is told. This is the famous episode on nuclear war in which Dr. Sagan argues that our responsibility for survival is owed not just to ourselves, but also to the Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.