Original title
Wonders of the Solar System
Released
3/7/2010
Origin country
GB
Genre
Documentary
Production companies
BBC, Science Channel
Status
Ended
Number of seasons
1
Number of episodes
5
In this spellbinding series, Professor Brian Cox visits the most extreme locations on Earth to explain how the laws of physics carved natural wonders across the solar system.
Chasing tornadoes in Oklahoma, Brian explains how the same physics that creates these spinning storms shaped the young Solar System. And out of this celestial maelstrom emerged the jewel in the crown, Brian's second Wonder - the magnificent rings of Saturn.
Professor Brian Cox explores how the search for aliens in the solar system has followed the search for water. He looks at Jupiter's moon Europa - a dazzling ball of ice.
Brian looks at the power of the Sun, seeing a total solar eclipse in India and the Northern Lights in Norway as well as making contact with the probe, Voyager.
Professor Brian Cox witnesses a total solar eclipse in India.
Physicist Brian Cox examines the sun's rule over our planet, heading for India to witness a total solar eclipse, and viewing the Northern Lights in the Arctic Circle.
Brian reveals how the beauty and order of the solar system was formed from a chaotic cloud of gas.
Brian reveals how something as flimsy as an atmosphere can create some of the most wondrous sights in the solar system. He takes a ride to the top of earth's atmosphere, and in the Namib desert, he tells how Mercury lost its atmosphere.
The worlds that surround our planet are all made of rock, but there the similarity ends. Some have a beating geological heart, others are frozen in time. Brian travels to the tallest mountain on earth, the volcano Mauna Kea on Hawaii, to show how something as basic as a planet's size can make the difference between life and death. Even on the summit of this volcano, Brian would stand in the shade of the tallest mountain in the solar system, an extinct volcano on Mars called Olympus Mons, which rises up 27 km. Yet the fifth wonder in the series isn't on a planet at all. It's on a tiny moon of Jupiter. The discoveries made on Io have been astonishing. This fragment of rock should be cold and dead, yet, with the volcanic landscape of eastern Ethiopia as a backdrop, Brian reveals why Io is home to extraordinary lakes of lava and giant volcanic plumes that erupt 500 km into the sky.
Professor Brian Cox visits some of the most stunning locations on earth to describe how the laws of nature have carved natural wonders across the solar system. Brian descends to the bottom of the Pacific in a submarine to witness the extraordinary life forms that survive in the cold, black waters. All life on Earth needs water so the search for aliens in the solar system has followed the search for water. Soaring above the dramatic Scablands of the United States, Brian discovers how the same landscape has been found on Mars. And it was all carved out in a geological heartbeat by a monumental flood. Armed with a gas mask, Brian enters a cave in Mexico where bacteria breathe toxic gas and leak concentrated acid. Yet relatives of these creatures could be surviving in newly-discovered caves on Mars.
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