Wonders of the Solar System: Aliens

This week, Professor Brian Cox 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 heart-beat by a monumental flood.

Armed with a gas mask, Brian enters a cave in Mexico where bacteria breath toxic gas and leak concentrated acid. Yet relatives of these creatures could be surviving in newly-discovered caves on Mars.

But Brian’s 6th Wonder isn’t a planet at all. Jupiter’s moon Europa is a dazzling ball of ice etched with strange cracks. The patterns in the ice reveal that, far below, there is an ocean with more potentially life-giving water than all the oceans on Earth.

Of all the Wonders of the Solar System forged by the laws of nature, there is one that stands out. In the final episode of this series, Brian reveals the greatest Wonder of them all.

Written & Produced by Michael Lachmann
Assistant Producer: Laura Mulholland
Series Producer: Danielle Peck
Exec Producer: Andrew Cohen

for further details, please visit programme link below
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rtg5k

Here's a hilarious spoof of the opening titles to the series... (contains swearing)

Wonders of the Solar System: Dead or Alive

In the penultimate programme in this spell-binding series, Professor Brian Cox visits some of the most dramatic locations on Earth to explain how the laws of nature create astonishing natural wonders across the Solar System.

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. In this episode 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 27kms.

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 extraodinary lakes of lava and giant volcanic plumes that erupt 500kms into the sky.

Written & Directed by Paul Olding
Assistant Producer: Ben Finney
Series Producer: Danielle Peck
Exec Producer: Andrew Cohen

for further details, please visit programme link below
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rtg5k

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

Wonders of the Solar System: Order out of Chaos

What they've been saying about last week's episode:
"utterly compelling...spectacularly good - Auntie at her best" Daily Mail

"literally the best hour of TV I have ever seen" Chris Evans, R2 Breakfast Show

"The sort of television that captivates hungry young minds, the sort that’s recalled as inspirational for years to come." Daily Telegraph

In the second episode of his stunning exploration of the Solar System, Professor Brian Cox reveals how all the beauty and order we see in our cosmic backyard was carved out of nothing more than a chaotic cloud of gas.

Chasing tornados 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. Brian travels to an ice-choked lagoon in Iceland to see the nearest thing to Saturn’s rings we have here on Earth. Using the latest scientific imagery and breath-taking graphics, he explains how the intricate patterns are shaped by the cluster of more than 60 moons surrounding Saturn. One of those moons makes a spectacular contribution to Saturn’s rings, and is his third Wonder of the Solar System. Brian describes the astonishing discovery of giant fountains of ice erupting from the surface of Enceladus, which soar thousands of kilometres into space.

Series Producer: Danielle Peck
Written & Directed by Michael Lachmann
Assistant Producer: Diana Ellis-Hill
Exec Producer: Andrew Cohen
for further details about this series, the BBC's new Solar System website and CBBC's spin-off series, Space Hoppers go to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/