Mike Masters and his astrophysicist father, Tony, arrive at the Kaputar Tracking Station in the Australian outback after having been away for eight years.
Visiting Wright Foundation scholarship student Susan Cooper arrives to study a meteor shower. She and the kids photograph the shower at night and track one meteorite that has hit the earth.
Mike convinces his father, Tony, that it's time to buy a horse. But when Mike goes for a ride, the horse throws him, and Tony decides it's too dangerous. Mike swears that something scared the horse.
Tony asks Mike to go camping with him but Mike declines. Tony camps near where he and his late wife used to collect gemstones. Tony's vehicle gets bogged and his mobile phone is out of range so he is unable to contact Mike.
Mike gets jealous that Nikki and Shane are spending so much time together and hatches a plan to fool Shane into believing that radio signals are being sent from space.
The magnetic field of Jupiter is a project that Zoe is supposedly studying as a Wright Foundation student. Unfortunately, it's Nikki's project as well.
Nikki needs software to help her complete drawings for her project on Mars, but she can't afford the software. She sets about making enough money to buy the software.
Nikki, Mike and Maggie see lights in the sky one night. They wonder if it's a UFO. Giles seems to be acting strangely and Maggie thinks Giles might be an alien.
Maggie's favorite tree is under threat, about to be cut down by a bureaucrat, Mr Carver, to make way for a new building. Maggie and Tim, a visiting Wright Foundation student, band together to save the tree.
Tony is launched into space aboard the shuttle. Nikki and Mike make up after their argument and the two hurry back from school to speak with Tony in space.
Tony returns to Australia a hero after his scientific experiments in space. Coral Lee, a television producer who wants him to become a celebrity on U.S. television, accompanies him.
Wright Foundation student, Simon, comes to Kaputa to use remote sensing to locate ancient Aboriginal sites. Simon uses both intuition and science to help him locate an ancient cave.
Maggie and Nikki's father, Robert, arrives from France to do a story on Dr. Tony Masters. Maggie thinks she sees a new star in the sky, but when Nikki looks, it's no longer there.
Cleo, a Wright Foundation student, makes a major discovery. She detects a mass of hydrogen far out in space, but when it's suggested she and her parents have their photo taken for a newspaper, she declines.
Tony, Marie and their children go on a holiday together. Nikki discovers what looks like an oil slick on the ocean, and the discovery of an oil-soaked penguin confirms the children's fear.
Against the backdrop of Tony and Marie's impending marriage, Wright Foundation student, Jake, attempts to complete the 'final experiment.' At the point of his own death, he aims to transmit his energy through the dish and into Space.