THE PLANETS
The Planets is an educational miniseries produced by the BBC and A&E and released in 1999. It documents the Solar System and its nature, formation, and discovery by humans during the space age.
Our Solar System began forming about 4.6 billion years ago from a swirling gas cloud. Over time, the gas cooled and clumped together to form large bodies called 'protoplanets'. The 'left over' material became comets, roaming silently through the Solar System.
Eventually after 100 million years, the enormous ball of gas at the centre of the cloud overheated and exploded in a huge nuclear reaction. The Sun was born.
People of the ancient world observed the movements of the planets and thought they were wandering stars. This is why the Greeks gave them the name planetes or "wanderers".
Episodes of THE PLANETS:
1. THE PLANETS Different Worlds
Closest to the sun lies Mercury, a tiny world of iron and rock, barely discernible in the glare. Then Venus, perhaps a second Earth, hidden beneath a blanket of cloud. Then Earth. And beyond us, Mars, the Red Planet. It has seasons, polar caps, and the possibility of life. Far beyond these rocky worlds are the distant giants. Jupiter, over 1,000 times bigger than the Earth, and Saturn, with its distinctive and dramatic rings.
2. THE PLANETS Terra Firma
If all goes to plan, the Galileo probe will end its mission and the millennium with one of the most breathtaking stunts ever performed. With its fuel spent and suffering critical radiation damage, the dying spacecraft will dive headlong into a plume of fiery ash from an erupting volcano on Io, sampling with its last gasp the geologist's Holy Grail: the inside of another world.
3. THE PLANETS Giants
So we listen to the two Voyager spacecraft every day, looking for some signal we're getting close to interstellar space. The greatest voyager in history is still travelling.
4. THE PLANETS Moon
This is Apollo Saturn launch control. Countdown for Apollo 11, to fly to land the first man on the Moon. Three men and their precious cargo of 21 kilos of moon rock had returned to Earth. Apollo 11, Apollo 11 this is Hornet, over.
5. THE PLANETS Star
Around it, the remaining debris from the supernova accreted to form the planets. We are made of star dust, forged in the heart of a star. In the last 400 years, science has peeled back the blinding layers of our sun, to reveal a star.
6. THE PLANETS Atmosphere
To understand the other planets, we have to understand their atmospheres. The journey of discovery began here on Earth.
7. THE PLANETS Life
It's connected to the other planets. We realise that Earth is living in a neighbourhood, and that neighbourhood influences the life here.
8. THE PLANETS Destiny
It was curiosity about what lay beyond our atmosphere that drove us into space. But the further we venture in our search for new worlds, the more we are struck by the special beauty of our own planet.
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On January 2nd, 1959, with the space age barely a year old, the Soviet Union launched Lunik - "little moon". It was sent to plant a Soviet pennant on the moon. Within hours of the launch, it became clear that Lunik was going to miss its target. As the Soviet scientists watched their tiny probe sail out to join the planets in an endless journey around the sun, an inspired thought occurred to them. They renamed their spacecraft Mechta "The Dream".
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In 1979, a robotic spacecraft flew by the planet Jupiter. There it found an uncharted body the size of our moon. On that small world, it observed something almost unbelievable.
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Three, two, one, go. In August 1977, two spacecraft called Voyager began an incredible journey. If they survived the hazards of billions of miles of space, they'd reach worlds so distant and strange, they defied the imagination - the gas giants.
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Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Here, on the 12th of September 1959, the rocketeers of the Soviet space programme prepared to launch a probe called Lunik 2. Its destination was the Moon. If it reached its goal, this would be the first time man had touched another world.
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THE PLANETS Different Worlds