The Backbone of Night
E11609
"The Backbone of Night" is an episode of the science documentary series "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage" in which Carl Sagan explores humanity’s evolving understanding of the Milky Way and our place in the universe.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Backbone of Night canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T55974 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Backbone of Night Context triple: [Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, notableEpisode, The Backbone of Night]
-
A.
In the Shadow of Man
In the Shadow of Man is Jane Goodall’s influential 1971 book that chronicles her pioneering field research on wild chimpanzees in Tanzania and helped transform our understanding of primate behavior and human evolution.
-
B.
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul is a comic fantasy detective novel by Douglas Adams featuring the eccentric holistic detective Dirk Gently as he becomes entangled with Norse gods and bizarre supernatural events in modern-day London.
-
C.
The Mysterious Mother
The Mysterious Mother is a 1768 Gothic verse drama by Horace Walpole that explores dark themes of incest, guilt, and religious anxiety within an aristocratic family.
-
D.
L’Enfant
L’Enfant is the surname of Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the basic plan for Washington, D.C.
-
E.
Harrow Songs
Harrow Songs are a celebrated collection of traditional school songs closely associated with the culture and history of Harrow School in England.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Backbone of Night Target entity description: "The Backbone of Night" is an episode of the science documentary series "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage" in which Carl Sagan explores humanity’s evolving understanding of the Milky Way and our place in the universe.
-
A.
In the Shadow of Man
In the Shadow of Man is Jane Goodall’s influential 1971 book that chronicles her pioneering field research on wild chimpanzees in Tanzania and helped transform our understanding of primate behavior and human evolution.
-
B.
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul is a comic fantasy detective novel by Douglas Adams featuring the eccentric holistic detective Dirk Gently as he becomes entangled with Norse gods and bizarre supernatural events in modern-day London.
-
C.
The Mysterious Mother
The Mysterious Mother is a 1768 Gothic verse drama by Horace Walpole that explores dark themes of incest, guilt, and religious anxiety within an aristocratic family.
-
D.
L’Enfant
L’Enfant is the surname of Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the basic plan for Washington, D.C.
-
E.
Harrow Songs
Harrow Songs are a celebrated collection of traditional school songs closely associated with the culture and history of Harrow School in England.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (43)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
documentary television episode
ⓘ
television episode ⓘ |
| basedOn | Cosmos (book) ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| depicts |
ancient Greek philosophers observing the sky
ⓘ
historical development of the concept of galaxies ⓘ |
| educationalFocus |
astronomy
ⓘ
scientific method ⓘ |
| explores |
how different cultures interpreted the night sky
ⓘ
the Milky Way as a galaxy of stars ⓘ the idea that stars are suns ⓘ the scale of the universe ⓘ transition from mythological to scientific explanations of the cosmos ⓘ |
| features |
dramatic reenactments
ⓘ
on-location filming in Greece ⓘ visual effects ⓘ |
| featuresPerson | Carl Sagan ⓘ |
| franchise |
Cosmos franchise
ⓘ
surface form:
Cosmos
|
| genre | science documentary ⓘ |
| hasAudience | general audience ⓘ |
| hasMainTheme |
conflict between dogma and free inquiry
ⓘ
critical thinking about the universe ⓘ |
| intendedPurpose | science education ⓘ |
| medium | television ⓘ |
| narrator | Carl Sagan ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| originalNetwork | PBS ⓘ |
| partOf | Cosmos: A Personal Voyage ⓘ |
| portrays |
Milky Way as a vast collection of stars
ⓘ
humans as part of a larger cosmic context ⓘ |
| presenter | Carl Sagan ⓘ |
| series | Cosmos: A Personal Voyage ⓘ |
| subject |
Democritus
ⓘ
Milky Way ⓘ ancient Greek astronomy ⓘ atomism ⓘ cosmology ⓘ cultural attitudes toward knowledge ⓘ evolution of scientific thought ⓘ history of astronomy ⓘ humanity’s place in the universe ⓘ presocratic philosophers ⓘ |
| titleRefersTo | the Milky Way as seen in the night sky ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Backbone of Night Description of subject: "The Backbone of Night" is an episode of the science documentary series "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage" in which Carl Sagan explores humanity’s evolving understanding of the Milky Way and our place in the universe.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.