Cosmos (Series)

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Here are my notes on some of the episodes:

 

Episode 1

Test ideas by experiment and observation
Build on those ideas that pass the test
Reject the ones that fail
Follow the evidence wherever it leads
And question everything

Planets from the Sun.
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune

Voyager One is the man-made vessel that has travelled out the furthest.
(listen to more on this excellent Radiolab episode)

We are on Earth, in the solar system, in the Milky Way, in our local group, in the Virgo Supercluster, in the observable universe,

Copernicus discovered that the Earth was not the centre of the universe in the mid 16th century.
See more here

Giordano Bruno took this idea further and discussed that stars are Suns too, with their own planets.
(the news was not received well)
See more here

Cosmic Calendar
Each month is about a billion years (13.799 billion years is the estimated age of the universe)
Every day is about 40 million years
See more here

The Big Bang
January 1st
The entire universe came from a spec, no larger than a piece of dust.

January 13th
The first small galaxies

March 15th
Milkyway was formed
(Sun not yet born)

August 31st
The Sun is born 4,5 billion years ago

September 21st
Life began on Earth

November 29th
Life was breathing, moving, eating, etc
Pioneering microbes (that had sex)

December 17th
First animals on land
Birds, dinosaurs, flowers, etc followed in the last week of December

December 30th
An asteroid strikes Earth and mammals take over the lead from dinosaurs

December 31st, 23:59m46s
All of recorded history is in these last 14 seconds.

—

Around 10.000 years ago we started to shape our environment.
See more here in a video by Kurzgesagt

In the last 14 seconds (on the cosmic scale) we started writing things down.

Only in the last 2 seconds, the two continents found each other
In the very last second, we discovered writing

Carl Sagan is who made the original Cosmos series and inspired Neil to pursue his career in this field (and to educate others).
See more here