Science can be fun. At least, that's the message delivered by Nova scienceNOW, the spin-off of Nova that is about to enter its third season this week on PBS. Hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the series focuses on four short pieces over the course of its hour-long runtime as opposed to a single story as its sibling series does. The series sports engaging graphics and the topics explored are made very accessible.

Though Nova scienceNOW delves into serious topics (a story on Alzheimer's appears in the third season premiere), the show tends to opt for a lighter, more easygoing feel. The show walks the very fine line between minimizing the scientific areas it explores and getting too deeply into the stories. It might be a difficult tightrope to walk, but one the series does exceedingly well.

This third season opens with a story on "Dark Matter," a substance which, apparently, is terribly difficult to define and even harder to understand. The basic idea of it is that if the law of gravity as we define it is accurate, there has to be about five times more "stuff" in the universe than we can see. Scientists can't see it (though they're trying desperately to do so), but they can see where it is due to the way it bends light. So despite not being visible, maps of where it is exist. It may not be the easiest of things to understand (and the story goes into far more depth than I do), but between the graphics, voice-over, and interviews with scientists, everything is brought down to a level where the average person can understand the basic concepts behind dark matter.

One of the more impressive aspects of this story is the fact that Nova scienceNOW managed to go out and find scientists to discuss the topic who are truly engaging. It is possible that they're just creatively edited, but I tend to believe the former, not the latter. Essentially, for this story, scienceNOW went out and found rock star-like scientists to discuss the topic, and their charisma and intelligibility carries the day.

For the "profile" story in the second episode this season (there is one in every episode), the series went beyond simply finding a "rock star-like" scientist, they went out and actually did a story on a scientist who just also happens to be a rock star (okay, semi-star). Though this profile story was less engaging than the one in the premiere (which deals with a man who tries to discern real from doctored photos), it clearly shows the aesthetic the series is trying to achieve. Nova scienceNOW is wholly interested in making science engaging, accessible, and fun for everyone.