Wonders of the Solar System

Professor Brian Cox explores the powerhouse of them all, the sun. In India he witnesses a total solar eclipse and in Norway, he watches the battle between the sun's wind and Earth, as the night sky glows with the northern lights. Beyond earth, the solar wind continues, creating dazzling aurora on other planets.

Discover how beauty and order in Earth's cosmic backyard was formed from nothing more than a chaotic cloud of gas. Chasing tornados in Oklahoma, Professor Brian Cox explains how the same physics that creates these spinning storms shaped the young solar system. Out of this celestial maelstrom emerged the jewel in the crown, Brian's second wonder - the magnificent rings of Saturn.

Professor Brian Cox takes a flight to the top of earth's atmosphere, where he sees the darkness of space above and the thin blue line of our atmosphere below. Against the stunning backdrop of the glaciers of Alaska, Brian reveals his fourth wonder: Saturn's moon Titan, shrouded by a murky, thick atmosphere.

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. Professor Brian Cox 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.

All life on Earth needs water so the search for aliens in the solar system has followed the search for water. We examine the patterns in the ice on Jupiter's moon Europa, which reveal an ocean far below with more potentially life-giving water than all the oceans on Earth. But of all the wonders of the solar system forged by the laws of nature, Brian reveals the greatest wonder of them all.

Der Mensch hat seinen Heimatplaneten erforscht, Astronauten haben den Mond betreten – und von Menschen konstruierte Raumsonden dringen immer weiter in die unendlichen Weiten des Weltraums vor. Sie liefern uns ständig neue Daten und senden Bilder zurück zur Erde, die uns staunen lassen. Denn in unserer Welt gibt es mittlerweile einen Mangel an Horizonten – obwohl wir unsere Erde und die Evolution des Planeten nicht wirklich kennen, gibt es keine unbekannten Kontinente mehr. Dies macht die Sterne und den Kosmos so attraktiv – sie zeigen uns, dass es außer unserer noch viele andere Welten gibt.