Lectures designed to provide a non-technical description of modern astronomy, including the structure and evolution of planets, stars, galaxies, and the universe as a whole. The new discoveries reported in the 2003 course are integrated and recent findings (through mid-2006) are included.

Part 63 of 8, lectures 61-72, Discs 11-12. Disc 11. 61. The quest for black holes -- 62. Imagining the journey to a black hole -- 63. Wormholes, gateways to other universes? -- 64. Quantum physics and black-hole evaporation -- 65. Enigmatic Gamma-Ray bursts -- 66. Birth cries of black holes -- Disc 12. 67. Our home, the Milky Way Galaxy -- 68. Structure of the Milky Way Galaxy -- 69. Other galaxies, 'Island Universes' -- 70. The dark side of matter -- 71. Cosmology, the really big picture -- 72. Expansion of the Universe and the Big Bang.