2020

S1.E1 ∙ A Grand Tour

Fri, Jan 31, 2020

An epic new series opens with a grand tour of the Solar System, told by the world's top space scientists. From the raging inferno of Sun to the icy beauty of Pluto, discover the secrets that the planets have kept for billions of years, illustrated with stunning images from space. But the real beauty of the show (and the series to follow) lies in the personal tales of the people who designed and operated the missions. This is the Solar System as never seen before.

8 /10

S1.E2 ∙ Sun & Mercury

Fri, Jan 31, 2020

The sun has long been worshipped as a god, the giver of heat and light and life itself here on Earth. But how it actually works (and what dangers it might hold) are still mysteries that scientists are trying to unfold.

This epic documentary shows how, after Galileo and other early astronomers began to study the sun, researchers began to wonder if the sun might interact with the earth in other ways than just giving it heat and light.

One scientist in particular, Eugene Parker, theorised in the 1950's that the sun should be expanding into space, blasting our planet with radiation in the form of deadly fast moving particles. These particles could be the source of strange phenomena such as the eerie 'Northern Lights' and might explain why sometimes, electrical systems here on Earth begin to overload for no apparent reason.

He was ridiculed by the establishment, because at that time empty space was thought to be a vacuum. But then an early mission to Venus proved he was right all along... and as a 90 year-old Parker charmingly says, 'the rest is history'.

Now NASA has launched a space probe named after Parker, the 'Parker Solar Probe' to actually touch the atmosphere of the Sun, a daring mission to find out more about how the sun works.

What seems clear though, is that very occasionally the sun will throw off a very large amount of material, and if it just happens to hit us, it could do severe damage to electrical and communications systems around the world.

This is an exhilarating real-life space adventure, revealing that our nearest star could pose a serious threat to our modern way of life. What seems clear though, is that very occasionally the sun will throw off a very large amount of material, and if it just happens to hit us, it could do severe damage to electrical and communications systems around the world.

This is an exhilarating real-life space adventure, revealing that our nearest star could pose a serious threat to our modern way of life.

8.7 /10

S1.E3 ∙ Venus

Fri, Jan 31, 2020

Venus is Earth's mysterious twin. A world that is about the same size as our home planet, and that formed in the same region of space, out of the same basic building blocks. We have been mesmerised by our closest neighbour since ancient times. Once we knew that Venus was planet and not a star, we began to wonder what life on Venus might be like. Was this an ocean world, shrouded in thick clouds, with verdant jungles, teeming with insects and dinosaurs?

The only way humankind could uncover the true nature of Venus, was to go there. And from the very birth of the space age, Venus would be the battlefront for our first bold steps into the cosmos. But this was to be a battle for space supremacy between two heavily armed super powers, each determined that it would be the one to get to Venus first. This fierce, rapidly evolving competition, was propelled by a furious determination to develop missiles that could kill millions of people.

This film traces humanity's first milestones in the conquest of our solar system. From the first planetary flyby with Mariner 2. The breathtaking Soviet Venera missions, that would become the first manmade objects to land on the surface of another planet. To the spare-parts Magellan spacecraft, built from the leftovers from other NASA missions. A spacecraft which would finally reveal a stunning global view of our enigmatic neighbour.

The story is joyfully told by scientists, engineers and historians who have invested their careers in understanding Venus. But unravelling the story Earth's twin, has forced us to accept some dark truths... Venus is like hell, with an atmosphere so dense that it is more like a liquid than a gas, which would crush most military submarines like a flimsy tin can. Venus has the hottest surface of any planet in the solar system. Venus was not paradise.

But how could this have happened? How could two planets, so seemingly similar, take such different paths? And if we cannot understand Venus, how can we really understand Earth?

8.5 /10

S1.E4 ∙ Mars

Fri, Jan 31, 2020

Mars is planet like no other in our solar system. It is a real place, where we could stand upon its surface and look at the majestic landscape all around, with only simple life support.

We have been drawn towards Mars for eternity. And we will continue to be. Going to the red planet is our destiny.

This electrifying film takes us back to our first encounters with Mars, when our very great expectations would be challenged by reality.

Would the surface of the red planet bear witness to Martian industry and domination? Or would it be a lonely, desiccated wilderness? Had our Earthly imaginations misled us and seduced us into projecting all our wild ambition for alien life onto our little neighbour?

The amazing array of contributors in this film reveal with wit and charm the extreme pressures placed upon them and the extraordinary challenges those involved faced, when charged with revealing Mars to mankind.

You will be given intense first-hand testimony of the fear and elation felt by the women and men who delivered our first robotic explorers to the surface of Mars. The shock, the awe, the incredible relief of their staggering achievement, comparable to landing men on the Moon. But also the conflict and frustration, bitterness and regret.

Did we we discover evidence for life on Mars? And if we did, why would we not admit it?

No other story of our conquest of the solar system is so full of human drama. This film contains a comprehensive cast of central players from a variety of Martian missions. A collection of protagonists that have never been assembled in a film before, and are most unlikely to be again. With sublime insight and eloquence they take us on a winding, rollercoaster journey. From 1960s Earth, across the gulf of space to Mars. Down through the swirling dust storms of the thin atmosphere, and with the aid of all manner of parachutes, retrorockets and airbags, to place ourselves, confidently on the red Martian soil in the present day.

Nobody will want to miss this story.

8.5 /10

S1.E5 ∙ Jupiter

Fri, Jan 31, 2020

Jupiter is the boss of the solar system. A planet that is two and a half times more massive than all the other planets combined. This is a world that has not only dominated the solar system, but shaped it. We knew that it was surrounded by a plethora of moons, some of them as big as planets, and Jupiter seemed to emit bursts of intense radiation as though the planet were some furious cosmic machine.

When humankind first ventured into space, there was a realisation that Earth is surrounded by bands of lethal radiation, caused by our magnetic field trapping energetic particles flowing from the sun. Could something similar be causing the powerful emissions from Jupiter?

But until the late 1970s, we really didn't know much about what was going on inside this monstrous planet.

With deeply insightful stories from the scientists and engineers that worked on a series of missions to the Jovian system, this film tells the story of how our robotic emissaries peered behind the swirling veil of Jupiter. The Pioneer missions giving us a tantalising glimpse of the system for the first time, and following just behind them, the incredible Voyager spacecraft, that leave the scientists awestruck at the implications. A tale of a colossal world spinning at 40,000 kilometres per hour, its moon Io spewing volcanic eruptions hundreds of kilometres into space above it, and the icy moon Europa, strangely devoid of impact craters, hinting at mysterious mechanisms at work beneath the ice. Team members from the Galileo mission describe how their small probe dived into the clouds of the gas giant and revealed puzzling results that have confounded our ideas of planetary formation ever since. Describing the fate of the intrepid probe as it fell towards the gigantic sphere of liquified metal that lurks beneath the surface of the giant planet.

The passion and knowledge of the storytellers in this film will give the audience a true depth of knowledge about the greatest planet in our solar system. And it will leave them in no doubt, that though Jupiter may be a failed star, the Jovian system is almost a solar system in its own right.

8.5 /10

S1.E6 ∙ Saturn

Fri, Jan 31, 2020

Saturn is a gas giant adorned by majestic rings. No other object in the solar system is so instantly recognisable. But when Galileo first peered at Saturn through his newly built telescope in 1610, he had no idea what the rings he had just discovered actually were. He described these strange objects as handles, or moons that were stuck on either side of the planet.

Understanding what the rings are and where they came from, has puzzled humankind ever since.

It was only once we had the ability to actually send spacecraft to Saturn, that we could really begin to investigate the origins of these wondrous celestial objects. And this is the heart of this story.

With intimate contributions from people with among the world's greatest knowledge of Saturn, the film takes us on a journey of exploration to unravel the mystery of how the planet got its rings. This is an emotional story, sometimes of rejoice and occasionally of poignant sadness. The extreme difficulty of getting to the ringed planet and trying to understand it, has required intense effort and dedication by hundreds of people.

Stories from the robotic envoys, Pioneer, Voyager and Cassini reveal startling results. A tale 100 million years in the making. A ring system made of thousands of bands of snowy clumps, each with varying shades colours. And an enormous cast of amazing moons, all interacting in a system of bewildering complexity. The film argues that some of the moons that lurk within the Saturnian system might arguably be the most intriguing and exciting places in the whole solar system. Worlds of bizarre chemistry and unknown biology. The scientists explain that these are places where there could be life as we know it, or there could be life that we have almost no comprehension of. And should life have started in such a cold, icy place, far from the sun, the rings of Saturn could change our ideas of how common life might be throughout the universe. Stirring stuff indeed!

A magical, space-based whodunnit.

8.7 /10

S1.E7 ∙ Asteroids & Comets

Fri, Jan 31, 2020

Our solar system is home to a vast array of mysterious wanderers. Lonely piles of rock and ice. These are the asteroids and comets.

Some of them are only tens of metres across. Others are bigger continents, like lost moons.

After occupying their usual habitats for billions of years, they can be flung away to a new fate by distant interactions with the planets. Sometimes they are ejected from the solar system, and sometimes they are on a collision course with Earth. Comets and asteroids have caused multiple extinctions on our home planet. Pretty terrifying stuff. But they are also bringers of life.

Many of these ancient celestial objects have been wandering in our midst, since before the solar system formed. After the violent formation of the Earth, these cosmic couriers would have delivered water and organic compounds to our planet. We owe our existence to them.

This film is the extraordinary story of how we have actually sent spacecraft to visit these wandering worlds. Audiences will be staggered by the audacity of sending robotic emissaries billions of kilometres into the dark unknown to visit these places. Our spacecraft have touched, landed upon and sampled these asteroids and comets. Doing so is among the most challenging endeavours that Humankind has ever undertaken.

This film has stories of immense determination and anguish, relayed by the scientists and engineers from the front line of space exploration. Tales of catastrophic failure and miraculous moments of snatching success from the jaws of disaster. The triumph and elation in these stories has no equal in space exploration.

A journey into the darkest recesses of space to visit places that have endured unimaginable periods of time, waiting to reveal their stories of destruction and creation.

8.5 /10

S1.E8 ∙ Pluto

Fri, Jan 31, 2020

This is an exciting film about boldly reaching out for the most impossible and inaccessible goals.

Out in the darkest reaches of the solar system, beyond the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, lies a realm where the sun is merely a brightish star.

In 1930 astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, after months of painstaking work, discovered a lonely world inhabiting this cold, desolate place.

The ninth planet of the solar system had been discovered and it was named Pluto.

But we knew almost nothing of the planet or the region of space that it occupied.

The Voyager 2 spacecraft travelled to Uranus in 1986 and then and Neptune in 1989, but there were to be no more planetary encounters and no more missions were planned. Our gallery of the solar system was incomplete.

But a passionate group of scientists would not accept this. They were prepared to spend the rest of their careers fighting to add Pluto to the gallery of places visited.

This is the brilliant and emotionally charged story of how an underground group of scientists took on the establishment, to take humankind to Pluto and beyond. A voyage to the most distant worlds ever seen up-close. And it would be an astounding, yet life-affirming journey for all of us.

New Horizons was born.

But during the decades that this mission would take to go from a dream shared by a small group of scientists, to an actual mission costing hundreds of millions of dollars, hurtling through space towards its distant prize, there would be many challenges to overcome. Not least, a remarkable separate discovery, that revealed an unknown region of the solar system, with hundreds of objects orbiting within it. A region that Pluto occupies.

The distant world wasn't alone and no longer was it deemed completely unique.

Pluto was soon stripped of its designation as a planet.

The setbacks and dramas on this rollercoaster of a journey, and the jaw-dropping beauty of the world that is eventually revealed, will leave nobody in any doubt that Pluto may be a dwarf planet, but it is as wondrous as any other planet.

The final episode in the Secrets of the Solar System series, is a breathtaking adventure into the depths of space, for all people.

8.7 /10