NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The most beloved, wonder-filled science franchise in television history returns with a new, 13-episode, mind-blowing adventure when COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS premieres March 9 on National Geographic. This out-of-this-world trip through space and time will transport viewers across 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution and deep into the future.

The next chapter of COSMOS, announced in celebration of what would have been visionary Carl Sagans 85th birthday this Saturday, Nov. 9, continues the legacy of the groundbreaking series co-written with Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, which was broadcast to a global audience 40 years ago. COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS airs on Nat Geo in 172 countries and 43 languages and on FOX this summer. The previous season was seen by over 135 million people worldwide.

This Emmy-winning, worldwide phenomenon is the brainchild of Emmy and Peabody Award winner Ann Druyan, creative director of NASAs legendary Voyager Interstellar Message, who serves as creator, executive producer, writer and director, and Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated executive producers Seth MacFarlane (The Orville, Family Guy), Brannon Braga (The Orville, Star Trek) and Jason Clark (The Orville, The Long Road Home).

Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History, host of the four-time Emmy-nominated StarTalk series and best-selling author (Death by Black Hole, Letters from an Astrophysicist), returns as host and series executive science editor. This season begins with him on the shores of the cosmic ocean as COSMOS enhanced and upgraded Ship of the Imagination and Cosmic Calendar return, taking viewers on a journey through time and spanning a stunning variety of worlds. Throughout these adventurous episodes, COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS integrates one-of-a-kind VFX, animations, holograms and stylized reenactments to carry viewers to never-before-seen worlds and meet unsung superheroes who have made possible our understanding of lifes spectacular voyage from its origin at the bottom of the sea to its possible future on the exotic worlds of distant stars.

This third season of COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS is our boldest yet, says Druyan. The Ship of the Imagination will carry us places we never dared to venture before: lost worlds and worlds to come, deep into the future and straight through that hole in the curtain masking other realities and all of it rigorously informed by science and made real by lavish VFX.

National Geographic is proud to be the worlds leading destination for viewers who are passionate about science and exploration, says Courteney Monroe, president of global television networks at National Geographic. Which is why were excited for the next chapter of the most-beloved and most-watched science show to date, COSMOS, to return to our air. COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS takes complex themes from astrophysics, astronomy and anthropology and makes them accessible and entertaining for millions of people around the world to devour.

COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS ventures to previously uncharted territories: starting back to the dawning of our universe, moving forward to the futuristic 2039 New York Worlds Fair and then far beyond into the distant future on other worlds. Visit an open house in the first apartment ever built and climb a 10,000-year-old stairway to the stars. Return to the foreboding Halls of Extinction, with living dioramas of the broken branches on the tree of life, and venture to the new, glorious Palace of Life, with its soaring towers filled with vibrant marine creatures. Stand beneath its Arch of Experience to know what its like to soar with the eagles or swim with the whales on their epic voyages.

Associated with the series are some of television and films most revered creatives across all crafts, including Emmy-nominated cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub (Independence Day, Stargate); Academy Award-winning and Emmy-nominated costume designer Ruth E. Carter (Black Panther, Roots); Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated composer Alan Silvestri (The Avengers, Forrest Gump, Contact); visual effects supervisor Jeffrey A. Okun (Clash of the Titans, Blood Diamond); and supervising animation directors Lucas Gray (The Simpsons, Family Guy), Emmy-nominated Brent Woods (American Dad!, Family Guy) and Academy Award-nominated Duke Johnson (Anomalisa, Mary Shelleys Frankenhole).

Many celebrities compose the noteworthy corps of actors who lend their voices to COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS. This season includes Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning actor Seth MacFarlane (The Orville, Family Guy) as President Truman; Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated actor Sir Patrick Stewart (Star Trek, X-Men) as German, British-born astronomer William Herschel; Academy Award-nominated Viggo Mortensen (The Green Book, The Lord of the Rings) as Soviet plant geneticist Nikolai Vavilov; and Judd Hirsch (A Beautiful Mind, Independence Day) as Robert Oppenheimer, famously known as the Father of the Atomic Bomb. Sasha Sagan, Druyan and Sagans daughter, appears in a recurring live-action role as Sagans mother, Rachel Gruber Sagan.

In conjunction with the launch of the new season, National Geographic Books is publishing a companion book, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, by Druyan, the long-awaited follow-up to Sagans international bestseller, Cosmos.

COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS is produced for National Geographic and FOX by Cosmos Studios, the company Ann Druyan co-founded in 2000, and Seth MacFarlanes Fuzzy Door. Druyan and Brannon Braga are the series writers and directors. Druyan, MacFarlane, Braga and Jason Clark executive produce. Kara Vallow (Family Guy, American Dad!) co-executive produces, and Joseph Micucci (Patriots Day, Ted 2) produces. For National Geographic, Kevin Mohs is executive producer and Geoff Daniels is EVP of global unscripted entertainment.

Like COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS on Facebook at CosmosOnTV. Follow the series on Twitter @CosmosOnTV. See photos and videos on Instagram by following @CosmosOnTV.

About National Geographic

National Geographic Partners LLC (NGP), a joint venture between the National Geographic Society and Disney, is committed to bringing the world premium science, adventure and exploration content across an unrivaled portfolio of media assets. NGP combines the global National Geographic television channels (National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Nat Geo MUNDO, Nat Geo PEOPLE) with National Geographics media and consumer-oriented assets, including National Geographic magazines; National Geographic studios; related digital and social media platforms; books; maps; childrens media; and ancillary activities that include travel, global experiences and events, archival sales, licensing and e-commerce businesses. Furthering knowledge and understanding of our world has been the core purpose of National Geographic for 131 years, and now we are committed to going deeper, pushing boundaries, going further for our consumers and reaching millions of people around the world in 172 countries and 43 languages every month as we do it. NGP returns 27 percent of our proceeds to the nonprofit National Geographic Society to fund work in the areas of science, exploration, conservation and education. For more information visit natgeotv.com or nationalgeographic.com, or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

About Cosmos Studios

Co-founded in 2000 by CEO and visionary Ann Druyan, Ithaca, NY-based Cosmos Studios creates, produces, and distributes eye, brain, heart and soul-nourishing science-based entertainment in all media.

Cosmos Studios aims to tear down the walls that have excluded so many from the scientific enterprise. We work to demystify the language, values, and drama of science, to give everyone the power of its permanently revolutionary methodology.

Carl Sagan, and those privileged to work with him, demonstrated that there is a world-wide appetite for compelling entertainment that reflects our dawning awareness of cosmic evolution and our place in its great story. There is a planet-wide hunger for images and dreams that reflect our radically altered sense of who, where, and when we are where we might go, who we might become.

In collaboration with award-winning writers, artists, filmmakers, producers, researchers, engineers, educators, artists, and a growing list of partners across science, communications, and finance, we seek to touch audiences with the soaring spiritual high that comes from grasping science's central revelation- our oneness with the cosmos.

Come with us at http://www.cosmosstudios.com on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/CosmosStudiosOfficial/ on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/cosmosstudios on Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/cosmosstudiosofficial/

About Fuzzy Door

Led by writer, producer and director Seth MacFarlane and president Erica Huggins, Fuzzy Door is the production company behind many of todays most successful film and television projects. With potent irreverence, biting satire, rule-breaking humor, compelling social issues and engaging storytelling, it has created an enviable portfolio of award-winning properties. Currently, the company produces the Hulu space adventure series The Orville; the beloved and Emmy-winning animated comedy series Family Guy, which is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary; and the fan-favorite series American Dad!, now airing its 14th season. Fuzzy Door strategically built on the success of the 1980s Cosmos series by producing the award-winning Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which garnered 13 Emmy nominations and was seen by more than 135 million people worldwide, and is gearing up for the next installment, COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS, set to air in 2020. On the film side, Fuzzy Door has created several commercially successful comedies, such as Ted, Ted 2 and A Million Ways to Die in the West, which have collectively grossed more than $800 million at the worldwide box office. The company is committed to weaving a socially conscious and intellectually curious thread through projects to bring fearless, innovative and bold stories to life, while maintaining its trademark sense of humor and wonder.

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COSMOS Returns! Season 3 of the Most Celebrated Science Show on the Planet to Premiere March 9, 2020, on National Geographic - Business Wire