NOVA: Season 39

Season 39 overview

The season begins with reconstruction at Ground Zero and the destruction caused by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Human perseverance appears alongside large-scale engineering and disaster.

Key story beats

  1. Ground Zero Reconstruction — The season opens by following the five-year construction of One World Trade Center and the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.
  2. Engineering Under Memory — Engineering, innovation, and perseverance are presented through the reconstruction of Ground Zero.
  3. Japanese Earthquake — The March 11, 2011 earthquake is described as magnitude 9.0, the strongest ever recorded in Japan.
  4. Tsunami Inundation — The resulting tsunami destroyed coastal villages and towns, rose above 100 feet in some areas, and traveled miles inland.
  5. Survival Recorded — Amateur and professional photographers captured the disaster and accounts of ordinary citizens becoming heroes.
  6. Search For Alien Life — The season turns to distant regions of the solar system where hidden forms of life might exist.
  7. Changing Planetary Assumptions — Astrobiologists explain how new findings are changing assumptions about neighboring planets and moons.
  8. Ancient Body Examined — Scientists conduct an unusual autopsy of a mummified body preserved in an Alpine glacier for more than 5,000 years.
  9. Copper Age Evidence — The investigation seeks evidence about death, diet, and everyday life during the Copper Age.
  10. Space Reconsidered — The program challenges the idea that space is simply an empty void separating objects.
  11. Time As Illusion — Physicists question what time is and whether the feeling of time moving from present to past is an illusion.
  12. Quantum Uncertainty — Quantum physics is presented through phenomena in which objects appear and disappear and distant events can affect one another.
  13. Multiverse Proposal — The season examines theories suggesting that the observable universe may be one of many universes.
  14. Volcanic Threats — Scientists study active volcanic sites where millions of people live under the threat of major eruptions.
  15. Eruption Risk Assessment — Research teams attempt to determine how likely eruptions are and when they might occur.

Seasons

Interactive Features

Episode Guide

Content sources

Plot analysis generated from content on Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Related entry on Wikidata (Q3071768), public domain (CC0).