Wonders of the Solar System: Thin Blue Line

Sunday March 21st 9pm, BBC2

This week Professor Brian Cox reveals how something as flimsy as an envelope of gas - an atmosphere - can create some of the most wondrous sights in the Solar System.

Brian takes a ride in a English Electric Lightning and flies 18kms up to the top of Earth’s atmosphere, where he sees the darkness of space above and the thin blue line of our atmosphere below. In the Namib desert in south-west Africa, he tells the story of Mercury. This tiny planet was stripped naked of its early atmosphere and is fully exposed to the ferocity of space.

But it’s against the stunning backdrop of the glaciers of Alaska, that Brian reveals his fourth Wonder. Saturn’s moon Titan is shrouded by a murky, thick atmosphere. In this episode Brian reveals that below the clouds lies a magical world. Titan is the only place beyond Earth where we’ve found liquid pooling on the surface in vast lakes, as big as the Caspian Sea. But the lakes of Titan are filled with a mysterious liquid, and are quite unlike anything on Earth.

Written & Directed by Chris Holt
Assistant Producer Tom Ranson
Series Producer Danielle Peck
Exec Producer: Andrew Cohen

For further details, please visit programme link below
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rmpqh