The Big Bang is a widely accepted theoretical model, but CERN’s Large Hadron Collider offers something more tangible: creating the physical conditions surrounding the birth of the universe. This program introduces viewers to that experiment and to others under way around the world—all of them designed to increase our knowledge of the physical structure of the cosmos. Dr. Andy Kirk of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority’s fusion research program demonstrates how to go about making a star—an extremely short-lived one, at any rate. Bringing the focus to the planetary level, the program takes students aboard a zero-G simulation airplane flight that illuminates the process of Earth’s formation. Produced by the Open University. (30 minutes)