Wonders of the Solar System is a 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. An accompanying book with the same name was also published. On 31 March 2011, the series won the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in documentary film-making.
Episodes We live on a world of wonders. A place of astonishing beauty and complexity. We have vast oceans and incredible weather. Giant mountains and breath-taking landscapes. If you think that this is all there is, that our planet exists in magnificent isolation, then you're wrong. We're part of a much wider ecosystem, that extends way beyond the top of our atmosphere. As a physicist I'm fascinated by how the laws of nature that shaped all this, also shaped the worlds beyond our home planet.
I think we're living through the greatest age of discovery our civilisation has known. We've voyaged to the farthest reaches of the Solar System. We've photographed strange new worlds, stood in unfamiliar landscapes, tasted alien air.
1. "Empire of the Sun" The first episode illustrates how the formation and behaviour of the Sun affects each planet in the Solar System. During this episode, Cox visits India to view and explain the workings of a total solar eclipse and the partial eclipses that occur on other planets. He travels to the Iguazu Falls to relate the causality between river levels, and sunspot fluctuations. An explanation of the Earth's exposure to the power of the Sun occurs in Death Valley, California, US, with an experiment inspired by John Herschel's actinometer. He also travels to Norway to observe and explain the defensive role of the Earth's magnetosphere against the Sun's solar wind and its role in forming the Aurora Borealis. Cox then relates the Voyager missions and their continuing exploration of the massive reach of the Sun's gravitational forces on objects in the farthest regions of the Solar System. Finally, in the clear skies of the Atacama Desert, at the Paranal Observatory he is able to observe, with the naked eye, the myriad of stars on the Milky Way and relates the meaning of their diverse colours as mapped on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram.
2. "Order Out of Chaos" Cox starts this episode in Al-Qayrawan, Tunisia to analyse the orbit of the planets around the Sun, with details on how the 23-degree tilt of the Earth creates the seasonal weather patterns. He also visits the Atlas Mountains, and relates how in clear night skies the ancients observed the rotation of the stars and the retrograde and prograde motion of Mars and the other wandering planets. In Oklahoma, US, he discusses the universal reach of the Coriolis effect and the importance of the conservation of angular momentum. Next, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory he examines how the Cassini–Huygens space-probe's imagery provides an insight on the highly complex structure of the ice rings of Saturn, and its diverse array of moons, and how they can reveal insights into the formation and evolution of the Solar System. He also explains how Enceladus, as the most reflective object in the known universe, has been of interest due to its continental divide-like canyons and geysers (as also observed in parts of Iceland). In the Sahara Desert the formative effect of winds on sand-dune morphology is paralleled to that of the gravitational effect of Saturn's 61 known moons on the matter that composite the rings - a phenomenon called orbital resonance.
3. "The Thin Blue Line" The third episode looks at the atmosphere of the planets and moons of the Solar System, with Earth, Mars, and Venus being the main focus. The episode starts with Cox travelling to South Africa and taking a journey in an English Electric Lightning up to an altitude of 18 kilometres where the "thinness and fragility" of the atmosphere could be observed in the middle of the day. This is then contrasted with the planet-wide consequences of Mercury's depleted, and Venus' broiling greenhouse atmospheres. Later, the dunal morphology of the Namib Desert is compared to what is known of the surface and depleted atmosphere of Mars, and is used to give an explanation of how the Earth maintains its temperature. Cox then explains how the damaging effect of the Sun's solar wind is deflected by the Earth's magnetosphere. Next, he discusses the transformative effect of weather on a planet's surface, such as the global dust-storms on Mars or the electrical-storms of Jupiter. The episode continues with an in-depth comparison of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, using data gained from the Huygens probe's January 2005 descent down to the frigid methane surface of the moon. It ends with Cox comparing Earth's hydrological cycle with Titan's methanological one.
4. "Dead or Alive" The fourth episode begins at the Grand Canyon, Arizona, US, where Cox draws comparisons of the canyon to Mars and the massive Valles Marineris. A trip to Kīlauea on Hawaii shows the constant geological activity of Earth, and again a comparison to Mars and the massive Olympus Mons is seen. Both comparisons are insightful in the sense that Earth's systems are still dynamic and active whereas Mars' have gradually slowed into inactivity. Cox then switches view closer to the Sun and the scorched greenhouse planet Venus, a planet often referred to as "Earth's twin", and compares it to the vulcan geology of the Deccan Plateau. An example of Earth's interconnectivity with the Solar System reveals that Jupiter's gravitational effect could potentially send an asteroid through the Asteroid Belt on a collision course with Earth, as evidenced by Meteor Crater. The same gravitational force is also shown to give the Jovian moon Io geological life (given the absence of meteor impact evidence there) as paralleled by the volcanism of Erta Ale in Ethiopia. All in all, with the universal laws of physics at play throughout the Solar System, its interconnectedness can also be seen.
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