Wonders of the Solar System (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Wonders of the Solar System is an award-winning 2010 television series co-produced by the BBC
and Science Channel, and hosted by physicist Brian Cox
. Wonders of the Solar System was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two
on 7 March 2010. The series comprises five episodes, each of which focuses on an aspect of the Solar System
and features a 'wonder' relevant to the theme. The series was described as one of the most successful to appear on BBC Two in recent years.
On 31 March 2011, the series won the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in documentary film-making.
affects each planet in the Solar System
. During this episode, Cox visits India to view and explain the workings of a total solar eclipse
. The Aurora Borealis is also seen in Norway and an explanation of the power of the Sun occurs in Death Valley
, California, USA.
and the geysers of Enceladus
, including images shown as seen from the Cassini–Huygens space probe.
, and Titan
being the main focus. The episode starts with Cox taking a journey in an English Electric Lightning
piloted by "Mike Beachy Head" up to an altitude "between 55 and 60 thousand feet" where the "thinness and fragility" of the atmosphere could be observed in the middle of the day transitioning "from light blue to dark blue to black". Later, the Namib Desert
is seen and used to give an explanation on how the Earth keeps its temperature, along with comparisons made to Mars. An in-depth look at Titan is seen with footage shown from the Huygens probe descent down to the surface of the moon.
, Arizona, USA, and immediate comparisons are drawn to Mars and the Valles Marineris
. A trip to Kīlauea
on Hawaii
shows the geological activity of Earth, and again a comparison to Mars and Olympus Mons
is seen. An analysis of Jupiter's gravitational effect is given with how it could potentially send an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. The same gravitational force is also shown to give the Jovian moon Io
geological life.
, and on Jupiter
's moon Europa
. Cox begins by travelling to the deep ocean to draw comparisons between space travel. The Atacama Desert
in South America is also viewed, which is seen to explain the lack of life found there. A trip to the Scablands in North-West America is also made with an explanation of the Missoula Floods
that once occurred there, and how it shaped the landscape geologically. More examinations of life come with a trip to Mexico and how life survives in caves.
The region 1 DVD and Blu-ray discs were released on 7 September 2010.
The region 4 DVD and Blu-ray discs were released on 7 April 2011.
The accompanying hardcover book were released on 30 September 2010:
from his Twitter account stated that there would be a second series, "Wonders of the Universe
", with the same crew and BBC science team. It was first broadcast on March 6, 2011 in the UK. The second series has a similar basis to series one, but features the universe
. The new series consisted of four episodes as opposed to the previous five.
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and Science Channel, and hosted by physicist Brian Cox
Brian Cox (physicist)
Brian Edward Cox, OBE , is a British particle physicist, a Royal Society University Research Fellow and a professor at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the High Energy Physics group at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at...
. Wonders of the Solar System was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
on 7 March 2010. The series comprises five episodes, each of which focuses on an aspect of the Solar System
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
and features a 'wonder' relevant to the theme. The series was described as one of the most successful to appear on BBC Two in recent years.
On 31 March 2011, the series won the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in documentary film-making.
Episodes
1. "Empire of the Sun"
The first episode illustrates how the formation and behaviour of the SunSun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
affects each planet in the Solar System
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
. During this episode, Cox visits India to view and explain the workings of a total solar eclipse
Solar eclipse
As seen from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, and the Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun as viewed from a location on Earth. This can happen only during a new moon, when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction as seen from Earth. At least...
. The Aurora Borealis is also seen in Norway and an explanation of the power of the Sun occurs in Death Valley
Death Valley
Death Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California. Situated within the Mojave Desert, it features the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America. Badwater, a basin located in Death Valley, is the specific location of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet below...
, California, USA.
2. "Order Out of Chaos"
Cox starts this episode in Al-Qayrawan, Tunisia to analyse the orbit of the planets around our Sun, with details on how the tilt of the Earth creates the seasons. He also visits the Atlas Mountains and provides an explanation of the how we see the orbit of Mars. This episode also provides an insight on the rings of SaturnRings of Saturn
The rings of Saturn are the most extensive planetary ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometres to metres, that form clumps that in turn orbit about Saturn...
and the geysers of Enceladus
Enceladus (moon)
Enceladus is the sixth-largest of the moons of Saturn. It was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. Until the two Voyager spacecraft passed near it in the early 1980s very little was known about this small moon besides the identification of water ice on its surface...
, including images shown as seen from the Cassini–Huygens space probe.
3. "The Thin Blue Line"
The third episode looks at the atmosphere of the planets and moons of the Solar System, with Earth, MarsMars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
, and Titan
Titan (moon)
Titan , or Saturn VI, is the largest moon of Saturn, the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found....
being the main focus. The episode starts with Cox taking a journey in an English Electric Lightning
English Electric Lightning
The English Electric Lightning is a supersonic jet fighter aircraft of the Cold War era, noted for its great speed and unpainted natural metal exterior finish. It is the only all-British Mach 2 fighter aircraft. The aircraft was renowned for its capabilities as an interceptor; Royal Air Force ...
piloted by "Mike Beachy Head" up to an altitude "between 55 and 60 thousand feet" where the "thinness and fragility" of the atmosphere could be observed in the middle of the day transitioning "from light blue to dark blue to black". Later, the Namib Desert
Namib Desert
The Namib Desert is a desert in Namibia and southwest Angola that forms part of the Namib-Naukluft National Park, the largest game reserve in Africa. The name "Namib" is of Nama origin and means "vast place"...
is seen and used to give an explanation on how the Earth keeps its temperature, along with comparisons made to Mars. An in-depth look at Titan is seen with footage shown from the Huygens probe descent down to the surface of the moon.
4. "Dead or Alive"
The fourth episode begins at the Grand CanyonGrand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, the 15th national park in the United States...
, Arizona, USA, and immediate comparisons are drawn to Mars and the Valles Marineris
Valles Marineris
Valles Marineris is a system of canyons that runs along the Martian surface east of the Tharsis region...
. A trip to Kīlauea
Kilauea
Kīlauea is a volcano in the Hawaiian Islands, and one of five shield volcanoes that together form the island of Hawaii. Kīlauea means "spewing" or "much spreading" in the Hawaiian language, referring to its frequent outpouring of lava. The Puu Ōō cone has been continuously erupting in the eastern...
on Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
shows the geological activity of Earth, and again a comparison to Mars and Olympus Mons
Olympus Mons
Olympus Mons is a large volcanic mountain on the planet Mars. At a height of almost , it is one of the tallest mountains in the Solar System, three times as tall as Mount Everest and more than twice the height of Mauna Kea the tallest mountain on Earth. Olympus Mons is the youngest of the large...
is seen. An analysis of Jupiter's gravitational effect is given with how it could potentially send an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. The same gravitational force is also shown to give the Jovian moon Io
Io (moon)
Io ) is the innermost of the four Galilean moons of the planet Jupiter and, with a diameter of , the fourth-largest moon in the Solar System. It was named after the mythological character of Io, a priestess of Hera who became one of the lovers of Zeus....
geological life.
5. "Aliens"
The final installment covers life surviving in extreme environments, and how the search for life on other worlds follows the search for water, focusing on MarsMars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
, and on Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
's moon Europa
Europa (moon)
Europa Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa is primarily made of silicate rock and probably has an iron core. It has a tenuous atmosphere composed primarily of oxygen. Its surface is composed of ice and is one of the smoothest in the Solar System. This surface is striated by cracks and...
. Cox begins by travelling to the deep ocean to draw comparisons between space travel. The Atacama Desert
Atacama Desert
The Atacama Desert is a plateau in South America, covering a strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is, according to NASA, National Geographic and many other publications, the driest desert in the world...
in South America is also viewed, which is seen to explain the lack of life found there. A trip to the Scablands in North-West America is also made with an explanation of the Missoula Floods
Missoula Floods
The Missoula Floods refer to the cataclysmic floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the last ice age. The glacial flood events have been researched since the 1920s...
that once occurred there, and how it shaped the landscape geologically. More examinations of life come with a trip to Mexico and how life survives in caves.
Merchandise
The region 2 DVD and Blu-ray discs of the series were released on 12 April 2010.The region 1 DVD and Blu-ray discs were released on 7 September 2010.
The region 4 DVD and Blu-ray discs were released on 7 April 2011.
The accompanying hardcover book were released on 30 September 2010:
International broadcast
- In the United States, this programme was aired by Science Channel each Wednesday at 9pm E/P from 4 August 2010.
- In Slovakia, this programme was aired on STV1 each Tuesday at 8:15pm from 25 January 2011.
- In Australia, this programme was aired by SBS One each Tuesday at 8:30pm from 1 March 2011.
- In New Zealand, this programme was aired by TVNZ 7 each Friday at 7:05pm from 15 April 2011.
- In the Netherlands, this programme was aired by NTR on Nederland 2Nederland 2Nederland 2 is a Dutch television channel, one of three alongside Nederland 1 and Nederland 3. It was established in October 1964 and tends to broadcast sports, light entertainment, news and current affairs programming....
each Sunday at 6:50pm from 17 April 2011.
- In Iceland, this programme was aired by RÚVRÚVRíkisútvarpið is Iceland's national public-service broadcasting organization.Operating from studios in the country's capital, Reykjavík, as well as regional centres around the country, the service broadcasts a variety of general programming to a wide audience across the whole country via radio...
each Monday at 8:10pm from 22 August 2011.
- In Austria, this programme was aired by ORF 2 each Thursday at 9:05pm from 8 September 2011 with the re-worked title, Geheimnisse des Lebens (Secrets of Life).
New series
Brian CoxBrian Cox (physicist)
Brian Edward Cox, OBE , is a British particle physicist, a Royal Society University Research Fellow and a professor at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the High Energy Physics group at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at...
from his Twitter account stated that there would be a second series, "Wonders of the Universe
Wonders of the Universe
Wonders of the Universe is a 2011 television series produced by the BBC, Discovery Channel, and Science Channel, hosted by physicist Professor Brian Cox. Wonders of the Universe was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC 2 from 6 March 2011. The series comprises four episodes, each of which...
", with the same crew and BBC science team. It was first broadcast on March 6, 2011 in the UK. The second series has a similar basis to series one, but features the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
. The new series consisted of four episodes as opposed to the previous five.