Universe · From the Milky Way to the quasars
The Universe Is Truly Terrifying
Right now you are moving at more than 800,000 kilometres per hour around a black hole of 4 million suns. And it is not the most extreme thing out there.
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What it covers
The documentary starts at home: the Milky Way, which carries us at more than 800,000 kilometres per hour around Sagittarius A*, the black hole of 4 million suns at its centre. From there it heads out to the most extreme things there are, with striking facts at every stop.
It passes Andromeda, the neighbouring galaxy coming our way, the clouds where stars are born, the Sun and stars that could hold 10 billion suns. Then comes the death of stars: supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, a pulsar spinning 716 times a second, magnetars and the collision of two neutron stars that was detected in 2017 and forged gold.
It ends with black holes, quasars that shine like 500 trillion suns, planets where it rains glass and the emptiness between it all.
Chapters
Select a chapter to jump to that moment in the documentary.
Sources
The specific facts in the documentary (dates, sites, figures) come from these sources.
- Event Horizon Telescope (2022). First Sagittarius A* results. ApJL 930, L12. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ac6674
- Event Horizon Telescope (2019). First M87 results. ApJL 875, L1. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ab0ec7
- GRAVITY Collaboration (2018). The S2 star near Sgr A*. A&A 615, L15. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201833718
- Koposov, S. et al. (2020). S5-HVS1, a star ejected from the Galactic Centre. MNRAS 491, 2465. doi:10.1093/mnras/stz3081
- Bland-Hawthorn, J. et al. (2019). The Seyfert flare of the Galactic Centre. ApJ 886, 45
- Falchi, F. et al. (2016). World atlas of artificial night sky brightness. Science Advances. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1600377
- Sawala, T. et al. (2025). Milky Way–Andromeda collision. Nature Astronomy
- Tremblay, P.-E. et al. (2019). Crystallization of white dwarfs. Nature 565, 202. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0791-x
- Wolszczan, A. and Frail, D. (1992). Planets around a pulsar. Nature 355, 145. doi:10.1038/355145a0
- LIGO-Virgo (2016). GW150914. PRL 116, 061102. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102
- LIGO-Virgo (2017). GW170817. PRL 119, 161101. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.161101
- Burns, E. et al. (2023). GRB 221009A, the brightest of all time. ApJL 952, L42
- Wolf, C. et al. (2024). J0529-4351, the most luminous quasar. Nature Astronomy
- Oei, M. et al. (2024). Porphyrion, the largest black-hole jets. Nature
- NASA, ESA, ESO, NOIRLab and Chandra: press releases for each discovery
About the images
The images in the documentary are real photographs and official renderings from NASA, ESA, ESO, NOIRLab, Chandra, Hubble, Webb and astrophotographers; none was made with artificial intelligence. The credit and licence of each photograph are in the video's description on YouTube.
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