From the back cover
The Astronomers is a six-part series that explores the lives and works of scientists around the globe who are revolutionizing our knowledge of the universe. The series, narrated by noted actor Richard Chamberlain, goes to the farthest reaches of the universe in search of black holes, quasars, dark matter, gravity waves, stars and evidence of planets outside our solar system. These celestial phenomena are explored through the perspectives of the men and women all over the world whose jobs render them responsible for uncovering the secrets of the cosmos. Further, The Astronomers takes a uniquely humanizing approach to science programming, focusing not only on the professional achievements of the scientists, but on their personal lives as well. A Window To Creation. How did the universe begin and develop to its present form? Cosmology, the study of the evolution of the universe as a whole, grapples with these and related questions. A Window To Creation explores how scientists hope to unravel such mysteries by studying the residual heat, or "cosmic back-ground radiation," from the original big bang. The program follows Berkeley professors Paul Richards and Andrew Lange to Japan for the launch of a rocket that will record cosmic background radiation free of the effects of atmosphere absorption. At the same time, Nasa's John Mather prepares his COBE satellite, or Cosmic Background Explorer. Further, the program meets with Margaret Geller and John Huchra of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics for a demonstration of their 3-D galaxy mapping technique.
